РУСENG
Anatoliy
Rakhmailov

Conversion of fuel and energy:
in non-equilibrium gases — from theory
to practice

Historical background

The history of non-equilibrium gas physics goes back to 1930s when it was experimentally established that abnormal dispersion and ultrasonic absorption in polyatomic gases are closely connected with disequilibrium between translational and inner degrees of freedom during passing of a sound wave.

Energy of equilibrium molecular gas resides, conventionally speaking, within three energetic basins — translational, rotational, and oscillatory basin. These basins are interconnected, and energy can «overflow» from one basin to another freely when the gas changes into non-equilibrium state. Hypothetically, it is possible to reduce energy stored in one of the basins. As a result, the energy starts to pour into that basin from one of the neighboring basins. When the energy store is full in one of the basins, the energy contained therein starts to overflow into the neighboring basins. Moreover, in non-equilibrium gas along with energy an exchange occurs between the basins as well as also the vibration of the molecules inside the oscillatory basin. However, due to anharmonic state of oscillation of the atoms within a molecule energy -exchange process is asymmetric by nature. That is, when two molecules with different degree of excitation collide, additional excitation of a more active molecule takes place which at times leads to molecular dissociation.

This phenomenon is known in science as Treanor’s mechanism. Specialists are also aware of so called relaxation time, when the specified phenomenon may take place.

Non-equilibrium molecular gas is an irregular state of matter. It enables re-distributing stored inner energy of non-equilibrium molecular gas for the benefit of workflow.

Two examples of non-equilibrium gas creation process

Rapid cooling of fuel conversion products (~ 10 microseconds) results in unequal cooling down degrees of freedom of the molecules. First- translational and rotational degrees of freedom are being cooled down, and only then- vibrational degrees of freedom are cooled.

Chemical reactions of fuel oxidation unequally heat up degrees of freedom of molecules. First vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom are heated up, and only after that — translational degrees of freedom.

Explosions and detonation of fuel mixtures are the most obvious example of independent and unmanaged transition of equilibrium fuel-air mixture into non-equilibrium gas with consequent, virtually instant relaxation.

Special feature of Quanttor technology is that all the above physical and chemical processes are manageable.

Prospects of non-equilibrium gases implementation within workflows.

IMany scientists consider the beginning of the 21st century to be a formative stage for a new technological setup having scientific discoveries in its basis. The advantage of a new technological setup, as compared with the previous one, will be manifested in sharp reduction of energy and materials intensity of industrial production.

Continuous research in this field is being carried out in the USA, China, Japan and a number of other countries. Due to developing a broad range of new technologies each of the countries strives to gain the lead in technology race and be the first to implement them in production, which could be a key to economic leadership and military dominance in the next fifty years.

The issue of technological barrier is most pressing for the US science and industry. Still, the UN EN countries, Japan and Russia face the same barrier.

For instance, the term 'technological barrier' can be referred to the current state of affairs in the field of defense industry considering aerospace weapons engineering (first of all, hypersonic). This issue is the stumbling block for all weapon engineers and manufacturers from the countries that are most advanced in military technological field. The increase in military technology cost is not a guarantee of proportional increase in opportunities of new technology as return on every dollar invested takes place. For example, the cost of Aircrafts, Rockets and Turbojet engines increases nearly ten times which requires expanding of equipment lifecycle and emphasizing the role of the available equipment modernization

However, it shall be understood that strive for repeating the leaders' success in the development of proven industry technologies is likely to take much more efforts and resources than running for leadership in new technological setup. Consequently, any efforts beyond critical technologies can bring only temporary effect that has no crucial significance for the future.

Only achievements of top scientific results in critical technologies allow to ensure a breakthrough to a brand new level.

Quanttor project is based on scientific discovery of inertial diffusion (Quanttor's discovery formula: “Previously unknown phenomenon of oscillatory (quantum) dissociation of molecules has been discovered, that is caused by abnormally high energy exchange between oscillatory -excited molecules moving in the gas flow that constantly changes its movement direction. Herewith, the degree of dissociation increases proportionally with the increase in speed of relative motion of oscillatory -excited molecules. This phenomenon is conditioned by appearance of diffusion of oscillatory -excited molecules in the above-mentioned gas flows).

The discovery was made as a result of a long-term theoretical and experimental research of various phenomena, technologies and equipment.

First of all:

  • technologies involving hydrogen;
  • vortex phenomena in general, and in Ranque-Hilsch vortex tubes in particular;
  • detonation processes in general, and detonation of methane-air and hydrogen-oxygen mixtures in particular;
  • processes of direct conversion of chemical energy of hydrocarbon fuel into kinetic energy that takes place in thermal nozzles, thermopressors, Quanttor reactors, etc.