The devil is in the details, comments interspersed. Pierce Nichols wrote:
> In order to get my thinking on the subject straight, I called my > chem consultant (my sister, currently getting a PhD in biology). First, the > decomposition reaction is a redox reaction or something similar, which > means that, in general, it's the metal oxides doing the catalyzation. My > intuition on the subject was correct; now I have some clue as to why. > Second, the temperature is only relevant to the catalytic activity to the > degree that it affects the oxidation state of the base metal. This may > explain why some potential catalysts, such as platinum, show so little > activity at room temperature -- they simply are not sufficiently oxidized. Looking at the tables, I noticed a lot of metals, including silver seem to have two oxide states where they can combine either with one or two oxygen molecules depending on conditions. Is there any point in talking of this as far as utility in catalyst design? I also wonder at the energy levels of O, O2 and O3 and what state the oxygen can exist at right after the catylization (at pressure and temperature)? Could a metal oxide be created by O or O 3 that only exist at high temperatures and pressures, but reverts to normal oxides when cool? A di silver or tri silver oxide? > > Third, catalytic activity occurs when the peroxide molecule gets 'stuck' to > the catalyst surface, Of course this we want to promote, is it wetting or something more? What force here makes the peroxide want to destroy itself? In certain cases would small amounts of additives (non catalyst poisons) act to encourage the "sticking". If you sit a drop of peroxide on a piece of glass will it sit as water does (surface tension)? > reacts with the catalyst to form an intermediate, and > then goes through a second reaction to form the products. Oh this is good! I wonder what this intermediate is? If the Hydrogen and Oxygen are entirely separated for a short period of time and it is the recombining of Hydrogen and Oxygen that gives the Exothermic, then you could explain why Armadillo's saturated cat pack blew up. It introduced the biprop during the intermediate stage. Has any one squirted hydrogen over the cat pack as it is soaked in peroxide? Wouldn't that give you pure steam as an exhaust? and a big exothermic hubabaloo? > In this set of > reactions, peroxide is serving as the electron donor (reducing agent), and > the catalyst is serving as an electron acceptor (oxidizing agent). The > energy released in this reaction is proportional the difference in the > electron potentials between the donor and acceptor. Since peroxide has a > very high electron potential (i.e it's eager to donate), we need to find a > metal oxide with a highly negative electron potential (i.e. it's eager to > accept). This sounds like marriage. > This gives us a search criteria that's easy to work with -- the > relevant tables are in the front of the Handbook of Chemistry & Physics. > The bigger the difference, the more violent the reaction. > > -p > > Mars or Bust! > www.marssociety.com > > _______________________________________________ > ERPS-list mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list -- >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ........ Alex Fraser N3DER ......... ......... [EMAIL PROTECTED] ....... [~]_>^</\-[~]_>^</\-[~]_>^</\-[~]_>^< _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
