Quote:
Originally Posted by thrash
My questions to the hive mind are:
(1) Does this approach make sense, or is there a scalable method of refining light hydrogen I've missed because it would be uneconomic without (say) fusion power?
(2) Is there a different approach that would solve the original problem?
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From a game standpoint, it makes perfect sense...
But from a reality standpoint, slightly weak, I think. Especially since Deuterium separation was doable in an office scale device in WW II... Heck, heavy water (D₂O) can be centrifugally separated and or fractionally distilled from light water (H₂O), and then cracked by hydrolysis in a basically washing machine sized device. The issue is primarily the low return rate of heavy water from water. (Ammonia, Methane, and Ethane also can be fractionally distilled for heavy in various states.).
Heavy water boils at standard pressure at 101.4°C, vs light water's 100.0. Fractional distillation can get pretty close to pure with a typical high school lab's equipment.
The thing is, the big limit is the amount of D (²H) & T (³H) vs ¹H.
But that there might be the key... It's not that a ship cannot do it, it's that it shouldn't be able to do it fast enough to be practical aboard ship.
Note that centrifugal separation should work for D₂O, the Methane spectrum CD₄, CHD₃ CH₂D₂, etc... Same for the spectrum of Ethane C₂H₆ vs C₂D₆ and the four variants between.. The trick is that you still have to crack the D & T out. Combine centrifugal and fractional distilling, like the Germans and the US did in WW II...
The more uniform the fuel in needs to be, the more time the refining takes. Likewise, the more esoteric the fuel (EG ¹⁴CT₄ aka ¹⁴C³H₄)... perhaps the JDrive needs the resulting ¹⁵C and ¹⁶C for some interdimensional reaction.
It's likely faster with molecular sieves at TTL10+/GTL9+...
Aside:
It's an interesting phenomenonto me that the only specific named isotopes commonly known are those of Hydrogen... Are there others?