Chris Rutherford wrote:
That is pretty substantial. For this to work as intended it would have to operate around the 100-250VA range, i.e. from a few reasonably sized solar pannels. Can I expect to get any reasonable quantities for fertiliser from this, or is it more like one plant pot's worth per year or something? Apparently there is a plasma discharge method, where the gas rapidly expands away from the ark and then mixes with cool air and rapidly contracts, maximising the NOx. Probably this or Jacobs ladder would be a good place to start. http://www.frontier.net/~ohare/threetogthr.GIF By bulbing the nox/air mix through a fixed quantity of water, could I use the ph or nitrate/nitrite content of the water to measure the NOx emissions? Thanks Chris
this is a pretty impractical way to make nitrogen compounds. It's thermodynamically inefficient: you have to heat the air up to make the spark (which ionizes the nitrogen and oxygen), and the heat doesn't get recaptured. You basically have to heat things up to around 7000K to make it happen.
Ozonators work by a different scheme (and they'll make NOx also).. they use an array of fine points at a fairly low voltage to create corona discharge (ionizing the air by increasing the field, as opposed to heating it in an arc)
There's a reason why the Haber process to make ammonia almost completely replaced the "dissolve nitrogen dioxide from an arc in water" approach.
If you want to make fertilizer from air, and you want efficiency, why not use nitrogen fixing bacteria on the roots of legumes?
OTOH, if you're looking for an excuse to make sparks, then, by all means, use your TC to make the sparks.
Or, if you need an interesting science project, so you can do quantitative measurements (always good for the judging), then comparing various kinds of sparks, etc. might be a good choice.
Doing a good quantitative study on the NOx and O3 production from a tesla coil would be a benefit to the entire TC community. We've all experienced it, but I don't know that anyone has done good quantitative measurements.
As for measuring the nitrogen generation... collecting the gas and bubbling it through a suitable liquid (water would work, but water with something added might work better), and then using something like a soil test kit or one of the kits you use for aquariums might be an approach.
You can also get specific ion probes (like a pH meter) for an appropriate ion (NO2? NO3?)
Or, you can collect the gas in a chamber and look for the spectrographic absorption lines for the various NOx products.
Or, you might be able to adapt the equipment used for doing auto emissions checks (I think it's called a 4 gas analyzer).
You can buy calibration standards fairly cheaply (that is, air with a calibrated amount of NOx in it), or, make your own with Nitric Acid.
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