Re: I need some help quick re: warning friends of Ozone.

["Gomez ADDams" <gomez-at-netherworld-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

I've got to throw my $0.02 cents in.

 Ozone does not smell anything like nitric oxide (the more common of the two
main oxides of nitrogen).  My girlfriend, who spent 16 years working around
very large ozone generators in very large pool water scrubbing systems, (for
example, the huge German-built system at the Glenwood Springs pool in
Colorado) knows intimately what ozone smells like.

 When investigating rust corrosion of some of my Tesla coil components, I
built a nitric oxide generator, fed with pure, heated N2 and air, and while
it does have an acrid smell, it's quite a different smell from ozone.  It
also did not have an appreciable effect on metals or plastics, whereas O3
generated the same way, did, in very short order.

 Aside: UV from spark gaps also breaks down plastics, especially things like
PVC, in a hurry- consider this when designing the structural

 NO is more readily produced at high temperatures, whereas O3 may be
produced anywhere there is a voltage over about 14kV.  Spark gaps produce a
fair amount of NO, but nothing compared to the amount of O3 coming off the
secondary.  In fact, if you set up a coil for corona dischage and not long
arcs, for example with a sharp-edged disk in place of a rounded toroid, and
do not allow strong single streamers or power arcs to form, you will be
_stunned_ by the amount of ozone formed.

In short, I completely disagree that Tesla coils produce more NO than O3.

 Furthermore, NO does not have nearly the oxidizing potential of O3.  The
only oxidizer more aggressive than O3 is O1, found only in the upper
atmosphere.  That's the stuff that etches the quartz windows of the space
shuttle orbiter!

- Gomez
 
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