Nitrous Oxide

[randomquestion]

After a search of the net, I have found that there are mostly two types of pages relating to Nitrous Oxide. That of making it for use as a drug, and the pages about the systems in racing cars and other vehicles. I wish to make the type used in racing.
Although this is the same compound I am wondering...

Is the procedure the same for making the drug, as it is for use in engines?

About how expensive would it be to produce at home?

How hard would this be to accomplish for some one fairly new to this king of thing (me)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Since the internet appears to have very few articles about making the compound for use in cars, and all of the pages relating to this subject seem so be about regualting/installing an injector on cars.

-- Thanks

[vulture]

Dude, you really should have searched more thoroughly. The nitrous oxides for drug use and car use are one and the same, N2O, also known as laughing gas.
The use to boost engines is related to it's oxidizing power and after decomposition it yields N2 which increases the gas volume in the engine.

You can prepare N2O very easily by heating ammoniumnitrate:

NH4NO3 -> N2O + 2H2O

[randomquestion]

Thanks. I thought they were the same. I just wasn't sure. I knew it was called laughing gas, and I know how it works in your engine. So is <a href="http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/nitrous/nitrous.html" target="_blank">http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/nitrous/nitrous.html</a> the way to go, because I would want a perminate setup? Or is there a simpler way. Im confused because of all the equipment needed that is mentioned in the article. I would prefer something with pictures. I did do more then one search through google and here.

[vulture]

That looks like an awful complicated description of just heating ammoniumnitrate in an erlenmeyer and collecting the gas in a bag which is simply put over the opening. I guess the totse suckers tried to be scientific but failed miserably.

[randomquestion]

Thanks again.
But I quote:

"A colourless gas, N2O, d. 1.97 g dm-3; m.p. -90.8°C; b.p. -88.5°C. It is soluble in water, ethanol, and sulphuric acid. It may be prepared by the controlled heating of ammonium nitrate (chloride free) to 250°C and passing the gas produced through solutions of iron(II) sulphate to remove impurities of nitrogen monoxide. It is relatively unreactive, being inert to halogens, alkali metals, and ozone at normal temperatures. It is decomposed on heating above 520°C to nitrogen and oxygen and will support the combustion of many compounds. Dinitrogen oxide is used as an anaesthetic gas (`laughing gas') and as an aerosol propellant."

Do I really need to pass the gas produced through solutiong of iron sulphate...??? Or will that just make the Nitrous Oxide more pure?

[vulture]

Well, if you're intending to breathe it, you better do the purification. NO is rather toxic and it will oxidize to NO2 in contact with oxygen, which will be present in your lungs and blood obviously.

[randomquestion]

As I said above I am NOT intending to breathe it. I was just wondering how this impurity would react inside an engine. Thanks for all of your help vulture.

[VX]

It will form nitric acid vapour as it reacts with oxygen and water, both of which will be found inside the engine. Obviously the NO will not be present in very large amounts and so should not be too much of a problem, but if your car survives for a while it could become a problem in the long term. In any case a normal combustion product of a car is NO and so a little more wont harm the car too much :) .

However how do you intend to compress the gas into a cylinder? This will be necessary in order to make it useful, as a steady stream of high pressure gas is required to seriously improve the cars performance.

[Anthony]

The only difference between the car stuff and medical grade is that something funky (I forget what exactly) is added to the car N2O to make it unbreathable.

IIRC, N2O usually comes liquified, otherwise you just wouldn't get much in a bottle, you'd need pretty high pressure to achieve this. Then you need the valves, regulator etc.

Comercially, N2O costs something like $1-$2/lb, it might well be a lot easier to just buy it.

[randomquestion]

Thanks everyone -- I know I could just buy it but that would be no fun. I was thinking about ho compress it last night...So you say that in order to make it liquid u just need to compress it...??? To about how many PSI?

<small>[ July 05, 2002, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: randomquestion ]</small>

[Flake2m]

I hope you have all the equiptment because turning a gas like N2O into a liquid is no easy task. You will have to compress a gass like N20 to about 3000psi in a gas bottle, no store bough air compressor is capable of pressure this high.

Compressing substances to this pressure is very dangerous. Pressures of 400kpa can blow an eyeball out its socket easily, so imagine what 3000spi could do.

[randomquestion]

Ouch -- See I don't have a compressor like that. But how would it look if contained in a balloon, and then lit? Even though that is kind of pointless, after doing all that work, then not using it in a car or something. Before I thought there was just a way of cooling the Nitrous Oxide so that it would recondense into a liquid. Evidently I was not very well informed.

[Mick]

its pretty much not feasable to produce your own N2O for car use.
for N20 to work in a car, it must be liquid.

at 565 degrees F N2O seperates into Nitrogen and oxygen.
when you inject N20 into the intake, it vapourises.
When it vaporizes, nitrous oxide provides a cooling effect on the intake air(which increases density, which increases the air mixture in the fuel which also increase compression).
then, on the compression stroke the pistons suck the N20 and the dense air into the cylinders. when the N2O enters the cylinder, it seperates into Nitrogen and oxygen. which again increases compression and again it increase the air mixture.

the adverage 20 pound bottle will last around 20secs in a V8.
(a 5liter V8 @ 4000rpm comsumes around 10,000 liters of air per minute. N20 is 50% more dense then air at the same pressure.)

if you don't know what you doing with N2O and engines, don't bother trying to rig something up, all you'll do is fuck your engine.

if your looking for a car modding project i suggest you start with a turbo. once you have installed a turbo and have done some tinkering, you will understand what you'll need to add N2O.(turbo + N2O = boostastic :D )

[Anthony]

If you lower the temperature then the gas will liquify at a lower pressure. If the b.p. of N2O is -88.5°C then cooling it to this temperature should liquify it at room pressure.

[Ctrl_C]

heh...good luck with that. -88*C is COLD. not entirely impossible but difficult none the less. personally, I would pressurize it and cool it. it might be possible to use a refridgerator compressor to pressurize it although that may not be strong enough. some CO2 or LN2 could be used to cool it.

[firebreether]

definitely MUCH easier just to buy a N2O system for your car. However, there is one DIY page i found on google (do a search) some british guy made a system for his motorcycle. Very interesting. Making the N2O on your own would not be worth it either, much more expensive :( and difficult. Critical point is something around 105 deg F and 950 PSI (I know I know, the crappy US way of doing things but thats what i remember off the top of my head, itd be easy to do a websearch to find metric units), so youd need to compress it to about 800 psi,(at least at room temp) still a heck of alot. Commercially bought N2O for cars is spiked with around 200ppm SO2 so you cant breathe it and get high(instead you might die).

Mick - you say turbo first? Thatd be at least 7-8 times more expensive for even the turbo system. For 500 bucks US you can add 25 % HP and not need much if any internal modification - only thing is the fun ends fast, which is why id still go with a fully built engine from the crank up with about 15 psi boost and medium porting. That is, if i had the money, which i dont - your choice.

[Mick]

acctually, a complete Nitrous system(crank, pistons etc etc) is going to end up more exspensive then a turbo system(turbo, intercooler, manifolds, exhaust piping etc etc).
i am aware you can add nitrous oxide to a stock motor, however your motor won't last very long.

[firebreether]

actually the cheap systems from nos and zex and all them only add 20 % and probably automatically retard ignition timing so you really dont need too much upgrades in the way of pistons and such. You would if you had a turbo though since youd be doubling HP give or take. To warrant that much extra hardware for nitrous youd need to run it [almost] completely on nitrous and little air, thatd be hella hard to do especially on anything bigger than a friggin honda. Youd need some serious nitrous hardware to do that, thatd be a fortune in its own right. But yeah, either way to really bump up the hp you really bump up the cost. If i had unlimited funds id do some heavy engine mods, then trash the car and get a ferrari!! :) :D soooooo sweeet hehe or id just buy enough ammonium perchlorate to make my own solid rocket boosters and launch into space. But i dont, and never will, and really dont want to have unlimited funds, so for now ill be stuck driving an ass slow gas thrifter honda or something like that. And i wont mind since ill have to pay less for the car, gas, and repairs, so ill have mroe money to spend on other hobbies........&lt;spelling edit&gt;

<small>[ July 06, 2002, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: firebreether ]</small>

[Mick]

um....yeah, okay.

*cough*

this isn't a car forum, so lets leave this alone.

[firebreether]

Totally my fault

[PYRO500]

If you wanted LN2O then you could see about the possiblility of having a large amount o glass coild run through a tank of LN2 that leading to an insulated bottle would allow for the liquified NO2 settle in the bottle and later the bottle could be sealed and it would self pressurize when it warmed up to room temp (just use a pressure rated bottle with room for expansion!). I don't see why you would want a turbo instead of a N2O system I think for all the turbo systems I've seen they suck for racing beacuse there so laggy if you want forced air intake go for superchargers there much better. and an intercooler on a N2O engine? what's the point? unless you have a turbo then your intake air isn't gonna be that hot.

<small>[ July 08, 2002, 09:58 PM: Message edited by: PYRO500 ]</small>

[firebreether]

pyro500, you are all mixed up. First off its N2O, not NO2 which is nitric oxide. Second, for racing, turbos are way better because who cares about half a second of turbo lag when youll be on boost for over a minute? With nitrous your bottle wont last that long. Superchargers are way less expensive, but arent as powerful because it takes power to run them, while turbos run off waste heat from the exhaust and make the engine more efficient not less efficient, although thats not really the reason to get one, the real reason is for mind numbing acceleration......... :D

[PYRO500]

Turbo's do not run on waste heat they run on the pressure of the exaust gasses to run a gas turbine that forces air into your engine. Pressure in your exaust is usually something you want to avoid. as far as superchargers go they are gonna take a bit of your engine power but in return they are gonna force more air directly to your engine. as far as nitro systems I have seen several ways to make the system more efficient including smaller nozzles better matched to the size of the engine and computerized systems that pulse the solenoid to conserve the use of the liquid.

<small>[ July 08, 2002, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: PYRO500 ]</small>

[firebreether]

Yeah, they run on waste pressure, but effectively that is waste heat. The hotter you keep the conbustion gases before you push them out the exhaust valve toward the turbos turbine, the more pressure you will have directly increasing the effectiveness of it. All engines today have a blowdown period where the exaust valve is opened before the piston reaches BDC of the power stroke. This is so it wont have to push as hard to get the gases out during the exhaust stroke. But this is wasteful because you lose some of the push on at the end of the power stroke. With a turbo, this blowdown helps drive the turbine, a good thing. After the turbo you want low pressure because the higher the pressure after the turbo, the less work it can do towards pushing more air in your engine, so normally turbocharged cars have really big, free flowing, and loud exhausts. One other good hting is that the power loss at altitude is much less severe than NA and supercharged engines. To have a perfectly efficient system you need as low an exhaust pressure as possible to retrieve all the heat from the medium. One thing we should be able to do to pick up free efficiency/power points so to run a small steam turbine from the exhaust heat. May be expensive, but I think it'd be possible to achieve considerably better efficiency. Worth a shot. Anyways I think nitrous systems have gotten more advanced and they are definitely an option for anyone whos wants cheap power. Especially if you have some unpopular car like a maxima or something where aftermarket performance bolt ons are hard to find. Just don't go overboard, and never ever have too little fun with it <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[PYRO500]

One of the main inefficencys of a combustion engine is it's method of dissapating heat. There is a ton of energy used in your car's engine and most of it goes to your radiator and your exaust a steam turbine wouldn't be effective beacuse for it to work you'd need a cooling tower on top of your caar constantly spraying the coils with cooling water. I saw somewhere where thermocouples were built into the long exaust pipe of a semi tractor and they were supposed to power something electric on it but I don't remember what it was.

[firebreether]

To get enough power to do anything with from thermocouples youd better need about a thousand thermocouples all lined up along the exhaust pipe. Back to nitrous oxide(not really though), I always wondered, you can use nitrous oxide to boost hp but why not use LOX? It would be a hard idea to implement and it would certainly cost alot, but for the amount of nitrous you hold on board till it runs out, with the same amount of LOX the tank would last twice as long at the same power level boost. It sure would take alot of money to get a flask that well insulated though. I heard of a LN2 powered car. You could use the storage as that but use LOX. Or use one of theose syatems in aircraft that dispenses emergency oxygen. Uses pellets of SC that decompose into O2 for a long time. Find a way to speed that up and you are set.

[pyromaniac_guy]

firebreather,
why stop there? if your going to go threough al lthe trouble to have a tank of lox in your car, you might as well get some turbo pumps and a combustion chamber and just rocket power the thing!

[Anthony]

I should imagine that using pure O2 would burn holes through your pistons :)

If using O2, you'd probably need a tank of N2 too, to give the same "buffer" effect as the nitrogen released by the decomposing N2O would give.

[firebreether]

You wouldn't inject pure O2 into the engine though, youd nix it with air so you would have the massive amount of nitrogen in the air that would buffer it. But you are right, burning holes in pistons isnt the best way to do things....which is why I full heartedly support pyro_guy !!!! :D imagine seeing this guy fly by you on the highway in a jet black (no pun intended) car with tinted windows and light red LOX rocket exhaust shooting off behind him with F18 hornets zooming overhead to try to head him off. That would be cool all right.....but slightly in the realm of never-gonna-happen land.
Speaking of which N2O is good as a rocket oxidizer too. Many a webpage about N2O powered hybrids.

<small>[ July 10, 2002, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: firebreether ]</small>

[pyromaniac_guy]

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1746226402" target="_blank">http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1746226402</a>

heres your chance...

the lr101 are kick ass, highly reliable engines... have one myself... and i paid alot more than the current price on this one... i was thinking of picking this one up as well....

with 1200 lbs of thust you should be able to propel a honda to 3 or 400 mph probably... but not for too long... even if you had a long enough track the lr101 at full thrust sucks about 30 gal of LOX and 25 gal of kerosene a minute!

<small>[ July 10, 2002, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: pyromaniac_guy ]</small>

[firebreether]

Wow, thats pretty neat. don't have the funds to get one. You should try making a rocket sled or something. If you really tried that on a honda, first you would blow the car up, but if it worked i bet you could get it up to about 600 mph if you could keep it in a straight line(like that would ever happen)have fun with that sucker!

[pyromaniac_guy]

firebreather,
a 1200 lbs rocket motor really isnt all that big of a deal. there have been 500 t0 1000 lbs thrust h2o2 motors put on go carts before (a go kart with a 300 mph top end and a 1/4 mile time of like 4 seconds! )... dont forget thrust 1 used something like 30,000 lbs of thrust to go supersonic, it really does take alot to get going very fast while on the ground.....

a few hundred mph however isnt al lthat difficult, and a half way realistic speed, ie you could probably use normal wheels for 250 mph, instead of mega-expensive 700 mph rated goodyear's!

[firebreether]

why don't you try a 4 sec go kart then <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> That would be the ride of a lifetime. You'd have to build up to it im sure. Maybe go for like 300 lbs and work up. Have fun

[pyromaniac_guy]

laying down (for aerodynamic reasons) on a go kart capible of 300+ mph would be scare enough with 20 gal of 90% h202 mounted in a tank at your crotch, let alone 10 or 20 gal of LOX and kerosine... what happens when you ahve a misfire and the thing turns into a fireball??? 1 foot away from my head is not the kind of place i want to mount a rocket engine, definaly not a liquid fueled one!

[firebreether]

nice point ya got there.

[Anthony Privratsky]

I found it strange the other day when i noticed a redi-whip can used a nitrous oxide "propellant" as it said below the ingredients. I wonder if you could extract it somehow? :confused:

[Ctrl_C]

there are only a few grams per can.

[firebreether]

Why did you find it strange? Its common knowledge, the N2O dissolves well in the fats(i think this is what it dissolves in) so it boosts the whip cream out of the can.

[genovese6314]

Sorry to dig up a really old thread but I've read way back in the forums and didn't feel it was necessary to start a new thread.

Upon heating of NH4NO3 I understand that it decomposes into N20 but there are some NOx gases as well. Earlier in the thread a Iron(II)Sulphate solution scrubber was suggested to remove the NOx gases. A Copper(II)Sulphate would work as well would it not? I have access to lots of Cupric Sulphate as an algicide.

[megalomania]

As I recall the iron sulfate is used for a very specific reason and should not be substituted.