At 08:51 PM 2/20/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >> exactly ethylene
> > (and propylene) oxide does, I recommend asking google for FAE and oxide.
>
>Thats right. If the thing you are looking for is bang for the buck, the
>critical factor is not how *much* energy is released, but rather how
>quickly it is released. In explosions, the shock wave is the thing
>that counts, not the total amount of heat. The canonical example
>{which I dont know for sure is true}among explosives experts:
>there is more chemical energy in a twinky than in a hand grenade. spike
Thanks. I have wondered about ethylene oxide since the 1960's when I saw it
used in a steel heat-treating furnace (electrically fired) possibly as an
internal atmosphere. They generated it from natural gas on site in a
reactor like an oversized water heater.
As a high school chemistry student then, I could not understand how you
could "oxidize" something without completely burning it. I guess that says
something about public schools (and teenage laziness...)
Chuck Kuecker
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