Power Generation Using N2O4
The tendency of N2O4 to reversibly break into NO2 has led to research into its use in advanced power generation systems as a so-called dissociating gas. "Cool" nitrogen tetroxide is compressed and heated, causing it to dissociate into nitrogen dioxide at half the molecular weight. This hot nitrogen dioxide is expanded through a turbine, cooling it and lowering the pressure, and then cooled further in a heat sink, causing it to recombine into nitrogen tetroxide at the original molecular weight. It is then much easier to compress to start the entire cycle again. Such dissociative gas Brayton cycles have the potential to considerably increase efficiencies of power conversion equipment.
Read more about this topic: Dinitrogen Tetroxide
Famous quotes containing the words power and/or generation:
“In what does the objective measure of value lie? In the quantum of enhanced and organized power alone, in accordance with what occurs in all occurrence, a will to increase.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)