• Revan343@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Technically combustion is the breaking of chemical bonds to instead bond with oxygen; carbon need not be involved. (Actually, technically oxygen need not be involved either, but we have an oxygen atmosphere not a chlorine one, so it’s gonna be oxygen.)

    Good luck finding a non-carbon-based fuel suitable for commercial air travel though, hydrogen tanks are too heavy, while hydrazine and ammonia are out for obvious reasons

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      but we have an oxygen atmosphere not a chlorine one, so it’s gonna be oxygen.

      Could also be fluorine but there are other good reasons not to use anything involving that as a fuel

      “It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.” ― John Drury Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

      I think that bit was about Chlorine Trifluoride but I might be misremembering.