Peroxide Catalyst pack ideas.

[Tom]

I'm not sure what the most effective catalyst is, I remember for some reason, a common one being silver mesh? Aaaanyway, a freind sent me an idea for a possible christmas give, a pipe of some sort, but it has a helix design. http://www.paradox.co.uk/erol.html#741x0&&

Anyway. Silver wasnt too expensive last time I checked, a place in town does various commeorative coins, 12 pounds, some more, some less, and it works out to about 1Oz each coin.

Now, here's where I am going. Perhaps our 2nd newest member could tell me. How effective would a design like that be, with a silver metal helix, at breaking down H202? If it would be any good, next year, I am moving on, hopefully to the 6th form college of my choice, that has some very nice equipment in various departments, one of the CNC mills I saw would be more then capable of milling that helix peice out of silver. If it would work, to me, it looks like it could be a very nice propulsion unit, pretty much pre-made, with the exception of the silver helix.

Thoughts, comments?

Tom

[Al Belli]

Hi Coffee,

How about using some sterling silver wire that can be obtained from a jewelers supply company ?

Al Belli

[Ray]

I don't have any experience with H2O2, so take all with a grain of salt...

A catalyst pack needs to have a couple of charactaristics...It must withstand high temperatures, have good structural integrity, be resistant to poisening, have maximum surface area.

There are several groups that have done this. Armadillo aerospace is doing it on a large scale, they have struggled with all of the things above. A H2O2 rocket motor is difficult at best to design, and getting high purity H2O2 is almost impossible, without making it yourself. That's one of the reasons I do AP motors. High purity H2O2 is very unstable and can be dangerous to handle. Armadillo Aerospace did a test of H2O2 on different types of clothing, the video can be found here.

It seems to me that most have used screens for the catalyst pack.

A simpler design uses Nitrous Oxide. Its fairly safe to work with, offers good ISP, and is readily available. One design can be found here

Good luck!

[Tom]

I've owned a few (well, 2) hybrid motors in my years (all 15 of them). Both were the Micro Hybrid by Renee Caldera, and they were both superb. However, they were sold on, as UK law came in to prevent me from legally being able to light them, as it would be constituting manufacture of explosives for the ignigter grain, and I couldn't be bothered/ legally couldn't aquire all the paper work to make it all ok. That said, I have found a similar engine, that uses an Estes Black Powder C6-0 engine as a booster, igniter and fuel grain, all in one. It goes in place of the Fuel grain in a normal Nitrous capsule hybrid. Will probably be aquiring one just for fun. And why don't I just use wire? Becuase I over complicate things, it's a talent.
Besides, a silver helix? It just sounds cool too.

Tom

[Mark]

And here's some pure O2 lore. Note, it is best to have an ember going when you pour your liquid oxygen on the charcoal, if you pour before you ember, you might scatter yourself into many particles, back unto the soup into which you came. There's that something about each briquette being equal to a stick of dynamite. For those of you who might want to introduce pure O2 into your pulsejet, remember just how loud a tiny volume of gaseous O2 and anything flammable will detonate if vaporized with it. A small balloon of O2 and acetylene will knock your socks off. I had a shop teacher in high school demonstrate it. He let some of the mix escape from the balloon before touching it off with a red hot rod, a good thing as it was crack bang loud still.
Mark
http://ep.llnl.gov/msds/Chem120/lox-oxidation.html

[Mike Everman]

Tom, your silver helix needs a flux capacitor and a beryllium sphere to go with it.

[Tom]

One of these days Mike, I will get back to you on that.

Tom