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re: Liquid Nitrogen powered vehicles.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:51 pm to GumboPot
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:51 pm to GumboPot
quote:
Currently liquid nitrogen sells for about $2 a gallon.
It’s effectively a steam engine but instead of boiling water you boil nitrogen.
Energy comes from a phase change just like liquid water to gas phase water (steam).
There is no combustion. No chemical reaction. Nothing burns.
Very safe. With the proper PSVs on the tank the worse that can happen is liquid nitrogen spills on the ground and it just boils off.
It’s carbon neutral for the climate change people.
In the video below they claim Toyota’s prototype has an 800 mile range and is pretty quick.
What’s the downside? No liquid nitrogen filling stations. Also I have to imagine because the tanks will not be perfectly insulated (nothing is) fuel will be lost through the required PRV just sitting idle. Use it or lose is probably the biggest technological barrier for this fuel source.
So... a Prius-style hydrid with a Liquid Nitrogen-fueled engine replacing the gasoline engine would get what mileage?
1
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:53 pm to GumboPot
quote:
Is it currently so cheap because companies like Air Products have higher margins on O2, CO2 and Ar?
It's cheap because it's abundant. Millions of cubic feet are returned to atmosphere so we can capture O2 and Argon.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:55 pm to NOLATiger163
In terms of asphyxiates, nitrogen is less of a danger than CO2 and Ar.
Nitrogen has a molecular weight of 28.
Oxygen 32 so O2 will naturally sink below N2.
Ar is 39 and CO2 is 44. They will sit the lowest. And FWIW water vapor is 18 and lighter than N2. It’s why we have clouds.
Nitrogen has a molecular weight of 28.
Oxygen 32 so O2 will naturally sink below N2.
Ar is 39 and CO2 is 44. They will sit the lowest. And FWIW water vapor is 18 and lighter than N2. It’s why we have clouds.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:55 pm to GumboPot
Back in 1987 when we were building the Murray hydroelectric plant at Three Rivers during the summer, we used truckloads of liquid nitrogen to cool off the cement that was poured because it had to be a certain temp. The mist from it cooled you off real quick if you were around it
Posted on 1/28/25 at 8:57 pm to cgrand
quote:
nitrogen gasses off at above -320F
you’ll need a cryo gas tank
That’s the part they left out of the story!
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:00 pm to TigerBalsagna
quote:
It's cheap because
Its a by-product of distillation of the other atmospheric gasses, and it's uses are limited because its such a pain in the arse to deal with.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:00 pm to Lee B
quote:
So... a Prius-style hydrid with a Liquid Nitrogen-fueled engine replacing the gasoline engine would get what mileage?
In the video in the OP they say a tank of liquid N2 would get you about an 800 mile range.
I can see this being viable for specialized fleets or mining operations. N2 emissions are probably easier to handle than ICE emissions in confined spaces.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:02 pm to Spankum
quote:
That’s the part they left out of the story!
They said it would be in a dewar
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:04 pm to GumboPot
quote:
a tank of liquid N2 would get you about an 800 mile range.
Ignoring the obvious question here, the reason for that is because you must input (or more appropriately remove) a shitload of energy into the process that results in a tank full of liquid N2 hooked to an expansion engine.
In the words of my old pawpaw and my old thermo professor, there is no free lunch.
The 3 rules of thermodynamics are you cannot win, you cannot break even, and you must play the game.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:13 pm to GumboPot
quote:
Is it currently so cheap because companies like Air Products have higher margins on O2, CO2 and Ar?
I believe that’s accurate - that nitrogen production is largely driven by O2 demand.
That being said, “cheap” is relative. The energy you can reasonably extract from a gallon of liquid nitrogen is nowhere near the energy you extract from a gallon of gasoline.
Google tells me the maximum theoretical energy density of liquid nitrogen released to atmospheric pressure is 0.77 MJ/kg. The energy density of gasoline is 34.2 MJ/kg. Even if you assume 35% thermal efficiency for an ICE, that’s still an effective energy density like 16x higher than the theoretical maximum using liquid nitrogen.
So your $2/gal liquid nitrogen is more like $32/gal of gasoline equivalent. And that’s at perfect efficiency, and without the demand effects of nitrogen being widely used for transportation which would increase prices.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:16 pm to lostinbr
quote:
lostinbr
Yea yea, all the stuff this guy said.
Diesel/bunker fuel is as good as it gets without going nuclear.
We had all this figured out in the 50's and it's fricking criminal that we had to throttle nuclear advancement so much to keep people from blowing each other's cities up.b
Posted on 1/28/25 at 9:41 pm to GumboPot
quote:
Ammonia is great in terms of emissions, but pretty deadly otherwise.
Do yourself a favor and lookup how much CO2 is created while making Ammonia.
Posted on 1/28/25 at 10:14 pm to GumboPot
quote:
In terms of asphyxiates, nitrogen is less of a danger than CO2 and Ar. Nitrogen has a molecular weight of 28. Oxygen 32 so O2 will naturally sink below N2. Ar is 39 and CO2 is 44. They will sit the lowest. And FWIW water vapor is 18 and lighter than N2. It’s why we have clouds.
My point--not sure who knows what, or gets the joke of sorts--was that "air" is mostly, about 78-79%, nitrogen (N2). Nitrogen is basically inert, odorless, and harmless. The issue is that if there's so much nitrogen that it pushes out too much of the remaining gases in air--mostly we need the 20+% or so that's oxygen (O2)--you can be asphyxiated without even realizing there's an issue before you pass out and eventually die due to not getting (enough / any) oxygen.
That seems pretty unlikely to occur because your vehicle offgassed nitrogen into your garage. But e.g. if you go inside an industrial vessel that's been purged with nitrogen without first connecting yourself to breathable air, you can kill yourself without even realizing you're in danger. And of course, as I've long advocated, one or two states are now using nitrogen asphyxiation as a means of imposing the death penalty, which IIRC has already been done once or twice.
Posted on 1/29/25 at 5:00 am to Voldemortnose
quote:
$2 now. Wait till the demand goes up.
Assuming it becomes commercially viable and sees widespread acceptance in vehicles this is a situation where the opposite would occur. Demand shifting from a liquid gas with a relatively low demand to wide spread use would shift it away from specialty pricing to commodity pricing as production ramped up. The raw material is incredibly plentiful and available in effectively unlimited amounts anywhere on earth and the supply is not reduced with its use as it would be simply released back as nitrogen into the air since no chemical change occurs.
I think it is an interesting experiment but I still think EVs are the long term future. We are just one major discovery away from EVs sending ICE vehicles the way of the dinosaur. Other than the aural pleasure they produce for some people ICE powered vehicles don't have a single advantage over electric motors except in the energy storage portion of the system. Motors are just so much better than engines for powering a vehicle whether it be a hypercar or a city car it isn't even funny.
Posted on 1/29/25 at 5:34 am to NOLATiger163
quote:
I think I'm currently being exposed to about 790,000 parts per million of nitrogen. Should I be worried?
Nitrogen not kept highly compressed and/or extremely cold (e.g. loose in a garage) will very rapidly go from liquid to gas. And i doubt many garages are sealed enough that any plausible amout of escaped nitrogen will bring the garage interior to sufficient nitrogen concentration to asphyxiate you.
Well, I said “nitrogen rich” which means 2 things. 1. “Rich” means relative to normal amounts. 2. You sound even more like an idiot trying to be smarter then me not knowing this.
Yeah, people commit suicide by running a car engine inside a closed garage. Perhaps you think they died from something else other than a gas? Surely the garage isn’t sealed enough according to your assumption.
Go ahead and let loose a nitrogen cylinder in your closed garage and then walk in it if it’s no big deal. Bet you wouldn’t.
Posted on 1/29/25 at 7:08 am to UptownJoeBrown
quote:
Well, I said “nitrogen rich” which means 2 things. 1. “Rich” means relative to normal amounts. 2. You sound even more like an idiot trying to be smarter then me not knowing this. Yeah, people commit suicide by running a car engine inside a closed garage. Perhaps you think they died from something else other than a gas? Surely the garage isn’t sealed enough according to your assumption.
You’d have to want to die from nitrogen. You’d see the gas if there was leak and hit the garage door. It would dissipate quickly
There would have to be a pressure relief valve so storing in a garage wouldn’t be ideal.
Not a T2 situation
This post was edited on 1/29/25 at 7:10 am
Posted on 1/29/25 at 8:13 am to UptownJoeBrown
Liquid nitrogen has an expansion ratio of roughly 1:700.
Meaning 1 gallon of liquid N2 will turn into 700 gallons of gas.
Meaning 1 gallon of liquid N2 will turn into 700 gallons of gas.
Posted on 1/29/25 at 8:32 am to NOLATiger163
quote:
Nitrogen not kept highly compressed and/or extremely cold (e.g. loose in a garage) will very rapidly go from liquid to gas. And i doubt many garages are sealed enough that any plausible amout of escaped nitrogen will bring the garage interior to sufficient nitrogen concentration to asphyxiate you.
Wrong. I know of two guys who FAFO'd. They deaded.
We used to use N2 dewars in a test environment. The metal building wasn't sealed very well. Even so, I was on my techs' arses constantly about keeping doors open and air circulating. The problem with an N2 atmosphere is that you don't know you're dead until you pop up at the Pearly Gates. Or the other ones.
Posted on 1/29/25 at 8:43 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
quote:
It’s carbon neutral for the climate change people.
quote:
How does the nitrogen get in the tank?
You will need electricity to power a Liquid Nitrogen Generator...but you can store in a large Vertical LN2 Tank and transfer from there directly to the vehicle (if you don't want to transfer to filling stations via LN2 trucks).
Posted on 1/29/25 at 8:50 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
quote:
Its a by-product of distillation of the other atmospheric gasses, and it's uses are limited because its such a pain in the arse to deal with.
Nitrogen has a million industrial uses. It's cheap because it's effectively "free"
The cost involved is entirely tied to labor and energy
All that said- $2 gallon is not going to be a standard list price across the board and you probably aren't going to find that price anywhere unless you're a large consumer.
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