Separation of Hydrogen Peroxide

[Raider5678]

What is the fastest way to separate hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and oxygen?

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

What is the fastest way to separate hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and oxygen?

Electrolysis.. ?

 

Edited October 4, 2017 by Sensei

[MigL]

The first step, separation of H2O2 to Oxygen and water, is very easy; Almost any impurity will break it down, if it isn't already happening on its own.
The second step, separating the water to Hydrogen and Oxygen, you're probably already familiar with.

[Raider5678]

1 hour ago, Sensei said:

Electrolysis.. ?

 

Nope. Not very efficient or quick without a massive amount of electric charge.

 

 

[Sensei]

11 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Nope. Not very efficient or quick without a massive amount of electric charge.

Nope. You asked about the fastest, not the most efficient way...

Heated H₂O₂ will decompose to H₂O and O₂

(wikipedia page about Hydrogen Peroxide mentions what materials can be used to catalyse this reaction)

But in OP you wanted to have Hydrogen and Oxygen.. not water and Oxygen..

 

If opening post, was not question, just tricky-question, to check our knowledge, then please share what do you know about the subject from your own experience (experiments?).

Many members here will be interested to hear what you want to tell us.

 

[Raider5678]

22 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Nope. You asked about the fastest, not the most efficient way...

Heated H₂O₂ will decompose to H₂O and O₂

(wikipedia page about Hydrogen Peroxide mentions what materials can be used to catalyse this reaction)

But in OP you wanted to have Hydrogen and Oxygen.. not water and Oxygen..

 

If opening post, was not question, just tricky-question, to check our knowledge, then please share what do you know about the subject from your own experience (experiments?).

Many members here will be interested to hear what you want to tell us.

 

5

Fair enough.

What would be the most efficient method?

[John Cuthber]

The fastest method would be a nuclear explosion.

Catalysis followed by electrolysis is probably the most efficient.

If you were clever you could scavenge the energy  released by the decomposition and use it to do some of the electrolysis.

[Raider5678]

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

The fastest method would be a nuclear explosion.

Catalysis followed by electrolysis is probably the most efficient.

If you were clever you could scavenge the energy  released by the decomposition and use it to do some of the electrolysis.

A nuclear explosion is out for me.

So what would you recommend as a catalysis?

[John Cuthber]

A number of options are available. blood, chopped liver baker's yeast or platinum for example.

Which one is "best" depends on circumstances.

 

What are you seeking to achieve?

[TheRadiochemist]

Manganese dioxide (MnO2) is a useful catalyst that can break down H2O2 continuously forever (I am conducting in depth research on this reaction, so I have a system that has been running for a very long time now on only a little nugget of MnO2. 

[Raider5678]

On 10/6/2017 at 3:34 PM, John Cuthber said:

A number of options are available. blood, chopped liver baker's yeast or platinum for example.

Which one is "best" depends on circumstances.

 

What are you seeking to achieve?

Sorry for taking so long, been busy.

 

 

I'm trying to achieve a way to continuously and quickly separate hydrogen peroxide into Hydrogen and Oxygen so that I can create a sustained burn for a liquid fuel rocket engine.

Yes, I know it's dangerous.

Yes, I know it's most likely easier to use a different liquid fuel.

However, I'm just kinda messing around here.

So the idea is to have the tank run the hydrogen peroxide over a catalyst and immediately following either do electrolysis OR start running it through the engine.

However, so far, water and Hydrogen don't burn well.

17 hours ago, TheRadiochemist said:

Manganese dioxide (MnO2) is a useful catalyst that can break down H2O2 continuously forever (I am conducting in depth research on this reaction, so I have a system that has been running for a very long time now on only a little nugget of MnO2. 

This creates hydrogen and water.

[TheRadiochemist]

2 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Sorry for taking so long, been busy.

 

 

I'm trying to achieve a way to continuously and quickly separate hydrogen peroxide into Hydrogen and Oxygen so that I can create a sustained burn for a liquid fuel rocket engine.

Yes, I know it's dangerous.

Yes, I know it's most likely easier to use a different liquid fuel.

However, I'm just kinda messing around here.

So the idea is to have the tank run the hydrogen peroxide over a catalyst and immediately following either do electrolysis OR start running it through the engine.

However, so far, water and Hydrogen don't burn well.

This creates hydrogen and water.

If you use pure H2O2, it’s much much much much more dangerous than liquid oxygen or hydrogen. You would probably be better off using just both, and even if you are only using this system to simplify the whole oxidizer/fuel setup to make a rocket more efficient, it’s not going to work. Just like doing algebra a bit differently to get a different answer doesn’t work, this is only causing more trouble than it is fixing. You need just the right ratio of fuel to oxidizer, and the most common problem in early liquid fuel rockets were the fuel mixers. You need to get it going in a perfect proportion, and that proportion is not 1/1 like you would get from splitting H2O2. Besides, the proportion changes throughout the rocket flight for different thrust adjustments. You’re only causing more problems if you want to split it on the spot      like in a rocket. And like I said, it’s a much more volatile fuel anyway. 

[Raider5678]

43 minutes ago, TheRadiochemist said:

If you use pure H2O2, it’s much much much much more dangerous than liquid oxygen or hydrogen. You would probably be better off using just both, and even if you are only using this system to simplify the whole oxidizer/fuel setup to make a rocket more efficient, it’s not going to work. Just like doing algebra a bit differently to get a different answer doesn’t work, this is only causing more trouble than it is fixing. You need just the right ratio of fuel to oxidizer, and the most common problem in early liquid fuel rockets were the fuel mixers. You need to get it going in a perfect proportion, and that proportion is not 1/1 like you would get from splitting H2O2. Besides, the proportion changes throughout the rocket flight for different thrust adjustments. You’re only causing more problems if you want to split it on the spot      like in a rocket. And like I said, it’s a much more volatile fuel anyway. 

I already realized that trying to split it up on the fly wasn't going to work. However, when you guys mentioned it, it sparked my curiosity again and I wondered once again if I could use it.

Right now I'm working on a way to keep liquid oxygen cold enough inside of a small rocket.

[John Cuthber]

Oxygen, on its own, is not explosive. Hydrogen, on its own, is not explosive.
Hydrogen peroxide, on its own, is explosive.

Do I need to expand on that?

 

If you decomposed H2O2 to form H2 and O2 then you would end up with "spare" O2 in terms of making rocket fuel.

It would make more sense to decompose water, that way you would get H2 and O2 in the right proportions to make- you guessed it- water, when burned in a rocket

Also the batteries you would need to produce the electrical power for splitting the H2O or H2O2 would be very heavy.

H2O2 is used (sometimes) in rocketry because it's (all too) easy to get it to decompose to steam and oxygen. That reaction is very easy and gives out lots of heat.

Getting the steam to decompose  further to give hydrogen and oxygen is so difficult that they use the reverse reaction- the combustion of hydrogen to make steam to do things like... drive rockets.

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by John Cuthber

[TheRadiochemist]

On 10/8/2017 at 8:10 PM, Raider5678 said:

I already realized that trying to split it up on the fly wasn't going to work. However, when you guys mentioned it, it sparked my curiosity again and I wondered once again if I could use it.

Right now I'm working on a way to keep liquid oxygen cold enough inside of a small rocket.

Don’t bother keeping it cold. Just put the oxygen under very high pressure.

[Raider5678]

On 10/18/2017 at 9:38 AM, TheRadiochemist said:

Don’t bother keeping it cold. Just put the oxygen under very high pressure.

Hydrogen? 

[Timo Moilanen]

Assume you need the hydrogen . I would try amphoteric reaction  with aluminium metal or zinc . Rule of thumb 20 c more temp doubles the reaction speed

[studiot]

Thanks for participating in the community. +1