Summary:With nearly twice the energy of normal, bent-shaped ozone (O3), cyclic ozone could hold the key component for a future manned-mission to Mars. No one has ever seen-let alone made-cyclic ozone. But that could all change at Temple University's Center for Advanced Photonics Research, which has been awarded a one-year, $1.25 million grant to develop cyclic ozone by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA).
While practical efforts to capture this isomer have been unsuccessful, it is possible that cyclic ozone would be stabilized in confined geometries. The required synthetic methods are nonetheless difficult to design and require theory–driven inputs that lie beyond the scope of classical methods. Quantum computation has the potential to enable these calculations, though the underlying hardware requirements remain unclear for many practical applications.
The future of ozone doesn't look so promising. Or, to be precise, ozone has been promising for years and years but hasn't been delivering. Ozone, O3, is an allotropic form of oxygen. It's a colorless gas, or if it's cold enough, a beautiful deep blue liquid or solid. It's manufactured commercially (it's useful in water purification and the like) by the Welsbach process which involves an electrical glow discharge in a stream of oxygen. What makes it attractive as a propellant is that (1) its liquid density is considerably higher than that of liquid oxygen, and (2) when a mole of it decomposes to oxygen during combustion it gives off 34 kilocalories of energy, which will boost your performance correspondingly. Sanger was interested in it in the 30's, and the interest has endured to the present. In the face of considerable disillusionment.For it has its drawbacks. The least of these is that it's at least as toxic as fluorine. (People who speak of the invigorating odor of ozone have never met a real concentration of it!) Much more important is the fact that it's unstable — murderously so. At the slightest provocation and sometimes for no apparent reason, it may revert explosively to oxygen. And this reversion is catalyzed by water, chlorine, metal oxides, alkalis —and by, apparently, certain substances which have not been identified. Compared to ozone, hydrogen peroxide has the sensitivity of a heavyweight wrestler.Since pure ozone was so lethal, work was concentrated on solutions of ozone in oxygen, which could be expected to be less dangerous. The organizations most involved were the Forrestal Laboratories of Princeton University, the Armour Research Institute, and the Air Reduction Co. Work started in the early 50's, and has continued, on and off, ever since.
QuoteSince pure ozone was so lethal, work was concentrated on solutions of ozone in oxygen, which could be expected to be less dangerous. The organizations most involved were the Forrestal Laboratories of Princeton University, the Armour Research Institute, and the Air Reduction Co. Work started in the early 50's, and has continued, on and off, ever since.
Since pure ozone was so lethal, work was concentrated on solutions of ozone in oxygen, which could be expected to be less dangerous. The organizations most involved were the Forrestal Laboratories of Princeton University, the Armour Research Institute, and the Air Reduction Co. Work started in the early 50's, and has continued, on and off, ever since.
Quote from: StraumliBlight on 04/06/2025 08:16 pmQuoteSince pure ozone was so lethal, work was concentrated on solutions of ozone in oxygen, which could be expected to be less dangerous. The organizations most involved were the Forrestal Laboratories of Princeton University, the Armour Research Institute, and the Air Reduction Co. Work started in the early 50's, and has continued, on and off, ever since.I guess you'd call that "ozone-enriched oxygen"?? Sounds promising.., but only if you can find a lab willing to work out exactly how enriched you could get your oxidiser mix before it explodes.
what if one could devise a high volume high speed ozone generator say post pre-burner? (e.g. using electricity from a generator driven off the pump shaft).
Basically a way of pumping more potential energy in per unit volume (mass) of oxidizer, with the goal of getting the chamber temperature to be even hotter. Assuming it doesn't go melty...
Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmwhat if one could devise a high volume high speed ozone generator say post pre-burner? (e.g. using electricity from a generator driven off the pump shaft).Might as well just use a resistive pre-heater.Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmBasically a way of pumping more potential energy in per unit volume (mass) of oxidizer, with the goal of getting the chamber temperature to be even hotter. Assuming it doesn't go melty...Chemical rockets are already fuel-rich to manage combustion temperatures. If you could somehow accommodate higher temperatures, you would just bring the ratio closer to stiochiometric (in the pre-burners) or to the peak Isp ratio (in the main chamber, different mainly because of exhaust molecular weight).
Quote from: Twark_Main on 04/22/2025 07:59 pmQuote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmwhat if one could devise a high volume high speed ozone generator say post pre-burner? (e.g. using electricity from a generator driven off the pump shaft).Might as well just use a resistive pre-heater.Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmBasically a way of pumping more potential energy in per unit volume (mass) of oxidizer, with the goal of getting the chamber temperature to be even hotter. Assuming it doesn't go melty...Chemical rockets are already fuel-rich to manage combustion temperatures. If you could somehow accommodate higher temperatures, you would just bring the ratio closer to stiochiometric (in the pre-burners) or to the peak Isp ratio (in the main chamber, different mainly because of exhaust molecular weight).I'm not convinced that temperature is the main blocking problem. A lot (all?) of the off-from-stoichometric added fuel is film cooling, and that's with reasonably low molecular weight CH4. You'd use even more film cooling if your combustion temperature were 4700K instead of the present 3700K. So the "managed" part is a geometry problem, it's not there to keep the hottest part any cooler. The adiabatic temperature of stoich methalox burning is 3200K, the other 500k is from high pressure used. IOTW, Raptor has maxed out the temperature already, it's not "reduced" by non-stoich mix.The main problem is coming up with the cyclic ozone (or even just plain ozone) safely and efficiently, on a few hundred kg/sec of oxygen flow. I suspect it's not possible, but maybe it's worth exploring (if this thread has any worth at all).
Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 09:11 pmQuote from: Twark_Main on 04/22/2025 07:59 pmQuote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmwhat if one could devise a high volume high speed ozone generator say post pre-burner? (e.g. using electricity from a generator driven off the pump shaft).Might as well just use a resistive pre-heater.Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmBasically a way of pumping more potential energy in per unit volume (mass) of oxidizer, with the goal of getting the chamber temperature to be even hotter. Assuming it doesn't go melty...Chemical rockets are already fuel-rich to manage combustion temperatures. If you could somehow accommodate higher temperatures, you would just bring the ratio closer to stiochiometric (in the pre-burners) or to the peak Isp ratio (in the main chamber, different mainly because of exhaust molecular weight).I'm not convinced that temperature is the main blocking problem. A lot (all?) of the off-from-stoichometric added fuel is film cooling, and that's with reasonably low molecular weight CH4. You'd use even more film cooling if your combustion temperature were 4700K instead of the present 3700K. So the "managed" part is a geometry problem, it's not there to keep the hottest part any cooler. The adiabatic temperature of stoich methalox burning is 3200K, the other 500k is from high pressure used. IOTW, Raptor has maxed out the temperature already, it's not "reduced" by non-stoich mix.The main problem is coming up with the cyclic ozone (or even just plain ozone) safely and efficiently, on a few hundred kg/sec of oxygen flow. I suspect it's not possible, but maybe it's worth exploring (if this thread has any worth at all).So we're back to "might as well just use a resistive pre-heater."
Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 04/22/2025 06:27 pmwhat if one could devise a high volume high speed ozone generator say post pre-burner? (e.g. using electricity from a generator driven off the pump shaft).Might as well just use a resistive pre-heater.
