Testing Laughing Gas For Rocket Propellant

A man's gloved hand is need adjusting the valve on a cylinder, from which a clear plastic tube extends. The man's other hand is seen holding the the other end of the tube in front of a dish of burning wax, which is flaring brightly.

Nitrous oxide’s high-speed abilities don’t end with racing cars, as it’s a powerful enough oxidizer to be a practical component of rocket propellant. Since [Markus Bindhammer] is building a hybrid rocket engine, in his most recent video he built and tested a convenient nitrous oxide dispenser.

The most commercially available form of nitrous oxide is as a propellant for whipped cream, for which it is sold as “cream chargers,” basically small cartridges of nitrous oxide which fit into cream dispensers. Each cartridge holds about eight grams of gas, or four liters at standard temperature and pressure. To use these, [Markus] bought a cream dispenser and disassembled it for the cartridge fittings, made an aluminium adapter from those fittings to a quarter-inch pipe, and installed a valve. As a quick test, he fitted a canister in, attached it to a hose, lit some paraffin firelighter, and directed a stream of nitrous oxide at it, upon which it burned much more brightly and aggressively.

It’s not its most well-known attribute in popular culture, but nitrous oxide’s oxidizing potential is behind most of its use by hackers, whether in racing or in rocketry. [Markus] is no stranger to working with nitrogen oxides, including the much more aggressively oxidizing nitrogen dioxide.

17 thoughts on “Testing Laughing Gas For Rocket Propellant

  1. A great book.
    I love chemicals I won’t work with.

    I always thought a Buran type Shuttle 2 could use kerosene and nitric oxide….J-79 self ferry jets…no cryogenics. Booster agnostic.

  2. He should use the comercial cream spray cans (if they hold more NO2) as they may get bought cheaper if expired, and use them upside-down as a start booster and eject them 10-20 seconds after lift off toghether with the first stage.
    Check if the “cream” can burn efficiently (it should as it has lots of sugar in it).
    A holdback is the weight of the cans and valves/pipes required.

  3. As a teen, I was very active with Estes and not long after with my own construction of ‘sugar engines’ and only once with a hybrid-engine (costly experience…
    Note to self: access to a machine shop does not guarantee success.)

    IMO: For low-attitude (10K feet and less) amateur models, candy fueled rocket engines are much easier to construct, to launch as they are lighter, and potentially less expensive overall.

    http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/sorbchem.html

  4. Luckily I can go and buy some from one of the countless “smoke shops” lining up and down the road like dirty rotten teeth, right alongside the payday loan stores. Just once I’d like to see somebody demonstrate how you make whipped cream with a two-liter bottle of nitrous oxide–how do you get it into the cream dispenser thingie? Do they even care to demonstrate that or is the cover story not even required anymore?

    It’s not like back when they sold you a “water pipe” for your wacky tobaccey. They sell refined mitragynine in those places, basically a heroin analog. Insane that this is legal, I am now joining the drug war on the side of war

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