Re: Ammonia spark gap ?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jason Petrou by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jasonp-at-btinternet-dot-com>

Luc,
Good idea, but there are a couple of problems:

1) Firstly, the Nitrogen + Hydrogen is not a standard chemical reaction. It
is in equilibrium, which means that depending on ambient conditions, you
will have a certain amount of H2 and N2 as well as NH3. the problem is this:
The equation for this reaction is 6H2 + N2  <-> 2NH3 (I think). The high
pressure side is the side with the H2 and N2 gasses, so if you run the whole
thing in a container, it will produce a very small amount of nitrogen and
hydrogen because the equation moves towards the low pressure NH3 end
(because there are less moles of gas on the NH3 side and gas takes up the
same volume per mole regardless of its density) Therefore the high
temperatures and pressures will mean that regardless how much ammonia gas
you put into the container, you will get almost no hydrogen and nitrogen to
dissociate. (for more info or a better explanation mail me off list)

2) Hydrogen is very light and will quench very fast, but will easily form
plasma, the reason that much of the suns mass is H plasma and not, for
example, lead plasma. Therefore you will get a plasma stream in your SG -
not exactly what you want.

3)The whole thing gets very hot (especially with plasma) and there is no way
to cool a sealed container

4) The glass world probably crack under the heat.

If you can find a tyraton to use, try it out then tell me what the results
are. I believe Mike Harrison has some (www.electricstuff.co.uk) so ask him
about it.

Good luck and have fun,

Jason (only 16!!!)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 3:16 AM
Subject: Ammonia spark gap ?


> Original poster: "Luc by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<ludev-at-videotron.ca>
>
> Hi guy,
>
> Time to time I saw post on Poulsen arc, tyratron, quench spark
> gap; gap using hydrogen for it's propriety of quenching fast. I
> know in the old time they use nitrogen in quench spark gap to
> prevented oxidation of the metal surface of the gap ( in reality
> they put air but the gap is seal and after a short period of time
> the oxygen is all combined with the metal and only nitrogen remain.
>
> They used gap in kerosene or alcohol vapor, city gas, etc. the
> goal is to dissociated the gas or vapor to have a substantial
> amount of hydrogen present at the gap ( hydrogen transfer heat
> really fast and have the characteristic of quenching fast and
> conduct fast: ideal for a spark gap ). But these material have a
> down side; the sub product is carbon ( and oxygen in the case of
> alcohol vapor ) the carbon finish by producing short.
>
> Today I had a flash; why not using ammonia ( NH3 ) when
> dissociated may be it only produced nitrogen and hydrogen ? The
> advantage of the hydrogen without the disadvantage of the carbon.
> I try to find reference about it for an hour on the web without
> success, is one of you know something related to that ? Or have
> an opinion on this.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Luc Benard
>
>
>
>