Wednesday 30 November 2011

Its been quite a while since my last post, but don't get worried things are still happening!

I am still working on a peroxide concentrator, but I have decided not to publish any more particulars of my work because of a few reasons:

1. Its really really dangerous:
I didn't really realize when i set out just how dangerous HTP can be if you don't know what you are doing.  I have done a bunch of research and the more I do the more I realize just how dangerous peroxide is! It can be done safely with the correct precautions but I don't want to encourage anyone to attempt it if they haven't researched it for themselves.

2. Its really dangerous!

That said I am looking at using a air mover with steam to vacuum evaporate (not distill) a peroxide solution. Using an air mover was a brilliant idea that my friend Dianne Boddy (a retired engineer) came up with. For those not familiar with an air mover, it works on the same principle as an aspirator (also known as venturi pump) and is designed to propell things along tubes (one application is food in an assembly line).


One of the problems with vacuum evoperation is pulling the vacuum required, but a aspirator should help as it can operate continuously and you can pull quite a good vacuum with one, and its cheap! Usually an air mover moves product along packaging lines, so compressed air is used (to not burn the product), but they typically require quite allot of compressed air to operate so I am planing on using steam.

I had been originally been looking at sparging using a compressor and dry air using a regenerative desicant dryer and a spray syphon (like a paint spray gun) in the mixture to increase mixing of the air and solution (also Dianne's idea). Regular compressors produce air with quite a bit of oil in them, and since organic impurities can cause big problems with peroxide I don't really feel comfortable using one even with a really good filtration system. Instead I would go with a oil free compressor. The sparing system turned out to be quite expensive so I am opting for a vacuum method with a cheap air mover powered by steam.

Another way to use a vacuum would be to suck air through the solution, eliminating the contamination problem.

We have been looking at several workshops in the 100m^2 size to setup a shop. We have decided on a nice little place and are signing the lease this saturday. Here are a few pictures of the place.







I haven't been doing as much rocketry as I would like as I have been working 5 days a week for the last two weeks (to pay for the first months rent and other costs), but I will be cutting it back to 4 and 3 days over the next few weeks. I have mainly been spending my time researching and designing the peroxide concentrator.

I Imagine we will be busy for the next week moving in but after that the two things I will be working on are: getting the nitrous engine ready for another test and the peroxide concentrator.

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