Jun 30, 2025 03:33 PM
https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/06/27/per...ergy-49569
EXCERPTS: Imagine the perfect rocket fuel. When "detonated," it would deliver colossal thrust, propel a spacecraft out of Earth’s atmosphere, and do so without the nasty baggage: no toxic hydrazine, no heavy metals, no combustion byproducts, and no fires. A dream, right? Right now, it is. But some jaw-dropping research out of Germany has the possibility of revolutionizing rocket propulsion. With a few caveats.
[...] Enter hexanitrogen — a molecule composed entirely of nitrogen atoms, which was just published in a paper in the journal Nature by Peter R. Schreiner and colleagues, at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Justus Liebig University Giessen. There has never been anything like it. The only neutral molecule that contains only nitrogen is nitrogen gas (aka dinitrogen, N2), an inert gas which makes up 78% of the atmosphere.
[...] Hexanitrogen doesn’t just defy chemical convention — it stores an astonishing amount of potential energy in its strained nitrogen-nitrogen bonds. When released, that energy transforms into nothing but pure nitrogen gas (N₂), meaning: enormous thrust, zero pollution. This molecule is arguably one of the most exotic and energetic substances ever created in a lab.
[...] OK, so now you've managed to make hexanitrogen without offing yourself. There is a minor problem – stability. The half-life of the stuff is 0.036 seconds at room temperature, meaning that in 0.36 seconds, 99.9% of it will be gone. That sounds like a lot of work for nothing. But it isn't. When cooled in widely used liquid nitrogen (-321°F), the group calculated its half-life to be >100 years. Quite the difference, and not a big deal logistically. A number of currently used rocket fuels have to be stored in liquid nitrogen.
This discovery has the potential to be a game-changer in the world of rocket propulsion, although there are still issues to solve... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Imagine the perfect rocket fuel. When "detonated," it would deliver colossal thrust, propel a spacecraft out of Earth’s atmosphere, and do so without the nasty baggage: no toxic hydrazine, no heavy metals, no combustion byproducts, and no fires. A dream, right? Right now, it is. But some jaw-dropping research out of Germany has the possibility of revolutionizing rocket propulsion. With a few caveats.
[...] Enter hexanitrogen — a molecule composed entirely of nitrogen atoms, which was just published in a paper in the journal Nature by Peter R. Schreiner and colleagues, at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Justus Liebig University Giessen. There has never been anything like it. The only neutral molecule that contains only nitrogen is nitrogen gas (aka dinitrogen, N2), an inert gas which makes up 78% of the atmosphere.
[...] Hexanitrogen doesn’t just defy chemical convention — it stores an astonishing amount of potential energy in its strained nitrogen-nitrogen bonds. When released, that energy transforms into nothing but pure nitrogen gas (N₂), meaning: enormous thrust, zero pollution. This molecule is arguably one of the most exotic and energetic substances ever created in a lab.
[...] OK, so now you've managed to make hexanitrogen without offing yourself. There is a minor problem – stability. The half-life of the stuff is 0.036 seconds at room temperature, meaning that in 0.36 seconds, 99.9% of it will be gone. That sounds like a lot of work for nothing. But it isn't. When cooled in widely used liquid nitrogen (-321°F), the group calculated its half-life to be >100 years. Quite the difference, and not a big deal logistically. A number of currently used rocket fuels have to be stored in liquid nitrogen.
This discovery has the potential to be a game-changer in the world of rocket propulsion, although there are still issues to solve... (MORE - missing details)