Hydrozine

[edweldon]

Hydrazine is used in many other applications as a corrosion inhibitor.

That may be true, Franklin - but according to the MSDS sheet for Hydrazine it is desribed as corrosive. OK?

Check out the Wikipedia article on hydrazine and scroll down to the Reducing Agent paragraph.  There you'll see reference to its use as a corrosion inhibitor in boiler water.  Follow the link and you'll see further discussion of the subject including reference to that one application and the reason why it is being replaced in that use by Vitamin C (HUH??) which like hydrazine is an oxygen scavenger.
And to any of you amateur chemists out there.......... contact with a mixture of nitromethane and ascorbic acid or the resulting fumes at any measurable concentration will cause permanent male impotence (LOL)  Could this one make its way onto the Snopes list?
Ed Weldon

[Ratliff]

One change I would make in the Wikipedia article on hydrazine is in its reference to hydrazine as a "low power monopropellant." There are no high power monopropellants because sooner or later even the best candidates, such as diisopropylammonium nitrate crystals dissolved in nitric acid, turned out to be liquid explosives.

While we're on the subject of Wikipedia, check out the article on the bombardier beatle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beatle

It's got a naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide rocket motor in its butt.

[wanabelandracer]

In the Hotrod Yearbook of 1967? they called it "This fools fuel is liquid dynamite". It think they meant that after it has stopped giving of smoke or fumes it needed only a small bump to set off a big explosion. Maybe I could still make a reasonable copy of the article and snail mail it to you if you want to blow up your vehicle. 

[Ratliff]

Title:Water gel explosives Document
Type and Number:United States Patent 4008110
Abstract:A method for producing water gel explosives by stabilizing a dispersion of nitroparaffin, preferably nitromethane, in an aqueous oxidizer salt solution through the simultaneous in situ gelation of the nitromethane dispersed phase and the continuous external aqueous phase, and the product so produced.

[Harold Bettes]

Howdy All,

For clarification on the subject of Hydrazine: The dangerous part of mixing Hydrazine with Nitromethane is that it only takes about 1% Hydrazine mixed with any Nitromethane and Methanol mixture to produce an unstable salt residue that is a Class A explosive. Don't mess with it as it is illegal to use as a fuel additive and it is dangerous (very dangerous) and is so unstable (the salt residue) that any movement can set it off!

Now that is straight talk from someone that was once braver than the Lone Ranger (or dumber than dirt) in playing with various chemicals to burn in an internal combustion engine. Or the devil made me do it!

Take care.

Regards to All,
HB2

[saltfever]

As previously mentioned hydrazine is a monoprop and its favorite use is for thrusters in space. Since that environment lacks O2 (unless provided) you might wonder what causes a hydrazine thruster reaction. Carrying along O2 and all the associated plumbing is heavy and a very poor design. Hydrazine disassociates in the presence of a catalyst. The N2H4 is pumped through a catalyst bed and an instant reaction takes place. The reaction will turn the inconnel throat and the stainless bell on a thruster red hot. All of the precautions mentioned above should be headed. However, pure N2H4 is fairly easy to handle and store. The problem is that impurities (at ppb values) react in such a way as to make it problematic. If you are educated about it, careful, use the right materials, and practice clean housekeeping, it is quite safe to work with. The last time I bought a 55 gallon drum for my company from the air force (1998) it cost $15,000. It would probably cost $35,000 today. It was shipped in a common 18 wheeler (not an air-ride van) from Texas to California. That is not a smooth ride.  Diluted hydrazine is used to clean the hard water deposits out of boilers. While it will attack aluminum, we used pure MMH in an anodized 7075 aluminum system with great success. However, each run was instantly flushed and dried with dry nitrogen. A monoprop reaction on earth is environmentally friendly and the byproducts are O2 and steam.

[Ratliff]

Too bad monoprop grade hydrazine is horrifically expensive, other it'd make a great propellant either for a rocket land speed car or a hot gas generator turbine car.

[Dean Los Angeles]

Too bad monoprop grade hydrazine is horrifically expensive, other it'd make a great propellant either for a rocket land speed car or a hot gas generator turbine car.

What does expensive have to do with it?

Material Safety Data Sheet
Hydrazine MSDS

Potential Acute Health Effects:
Very hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of ingestion. Hazardous in case of skin contact (corrosive), of
eye contact (irritant), of inhalation. Slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (permeator). Liquid or spray mist
may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous membranes of eyes, mouth and respiratory tract. Skin
contact may produce burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation of respiratory tract,
characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath. Severe over-exposure can result in death.
Potential Chronic Health Effects:
Hazardous in case of skin contact (permeator).
CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS: Classified + (PROVEN) by OSHA. Classified 2B (Possible for human.) by IARC.
Classified A2 (Suspected for human.) by ACGIH, 2 (Reasonably anticipated.) by NTP.
MUTAGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
TERATOGENIC EFFECTS: Not available.
DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: Not available.
The substance is toxic to blood, kidneys, lungs, the nervous system, mucous membranes.
Repeated or prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organs damage. Repeated or prolonged

[uglydog56]

Hydrazine is a corrosion inhibitor in steam plants only.  You can't coat your undercarriage with it or anything.  It scavenges dissolved oxygen from the steam plant water, minimizing the potential for general corrosion.  I could look up the formula here at work, but I'm too lazy, and it isn't like you have a steam plant in your back yard or anything.

Rick A Cone

[MCR]

IIRC, hydrazine was the reason the Me 163 Komet killed more Germans than Americans.

But I think it is used actively in the F-16 Falcon as fuel for the EPU (Emergenccy Power Unit).  Since the F-16 has only one jet engine and the glide slope of a rock, they need to turn the engine into a rocket engine in case it flames out and can't restart.

Could be wrong. 

Anyhow, hydrogen peroxide is a better and safer monopropellant.  Spray it on a platinum mesh and go to town.

I often wondered what would happen with a water injection system full of hydrogen peroxide, but was too chicken to find out.

[dick elliott]

Before hydrazine, we played around with Tetra-nitromethane, but that to was band'd. Tetra was nitro X 3. Pitrick acid before that. The entire fuel system had to be plated when you ran it. The good ole days!!!!!

[Milwaukee Midget]

Is there a chemist in the house?

If it's related to anhydrous ammonia, it's corrosiveness might be determined by what it comes in contact with. 

Here in the midwest, it's not unusual (although less common today) to use an LP tank to store Anhydrous during the planting season.  The problem is, Anhydrous will corrode brass and rubber gaskets, whereas a tank with stainless fittings is okay.

If that also applies to Hydrazine, a derivative of Ammonia, perhaps that explains the question as to whether or not it is corrosive?  What will it react with?

[racer x]

I am enjoying this thread immensely. But I had to laugh. I thought  hydrazine was the active ingredient in moth balls .

[jdincau]

That would be benzine

[Dean Los Angeles]

And yes, benzine works as a fuel too! Great additive for methanol. Ah, greater living through chemistry.

Oh yeah! It's a toxic carcinogen too. I wondered where all those brain cells went! 

The space shuttle thrusters were mentioned that use monomethyl hydrazine, and nitrogen tetroxide as a hypergolic propellant. The injector plate is about 6 inches in diameter and has several hundred holes about 0.012 diameter. Drilling the holes took 4 days on a CNC that had a really small peck drill cycle. The plate is made of Niobium. Niobium bonds with just about anything and everything and has a 24 step refining process. The shuttle has 38 Primary Reaction Control System (PRCS) thrusters and the nozzle on every one has a different profile to fit the outer skin. There are 6 smaller vernier thrusters for a total of 44. Hint: I worked for the company that made them.

Niobium (columbium) is a real bitch to work with. It was discovered the hard way that if you touched it, it cracked at the touch point when it was welded. Welded with an electron beam welder in a vacuum.

The Marquardt Company made thrusters for just about every satellite and the lunar lander. All of them had a life span measured in seconds. The lunar lander thruster had a rated life of 10 seconds. When the shuttle came along it had a maximum 150 seconds of burn PER misssion. The original specification called for 100 flights with no maintenance. That sure went out the window in a hurry.

The original delivery schedule for the shuttle was hung up on the thruster delivery. Fortunately the main engine took over as the long lead item, then the thermal tile problems took the "heat" off of us.

The shuttle was the first flight vehicle that was reverse speed tested. Other than the really slow drop tests that were more landing tests than anything else, the first flight was from mach 22 to zero! The thrusters are used until the atmosphere is reached and the thrusters start trading off with the flight surfaces.