Word: hydrogenic
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...planned, the Neptune will burn the same fuels as the V2: alcohol and liquid oxygen. It will also carry hydrogen peroxide, which suggests that, like the V2, it will have a steam-driven pump to rush the fuel into the combustion chamber...
...sharp there was a fanfare of trumpets from the municipal band. "Defense absolue de fumer!" roared the loudspeakers around the park. With a hiss and a rush, the mixture of hydrogen and municipal cooking gas poured into the first of the great balloons lying limp on the greensward of Le Mans' Quinconces des Jacobins. At home, the housewives of Le Mans were busily trying to cook their Sunday dinners, so from time to time the gas had to be turned off again. But in the park a milling crowd of 10,000 cheered lustily...
...nitrate is a salt, a combination of a base and an acid. But it is far from peaceful, as most other salts are. Instead of having a metal (e.g., sodium or iron) as the basic part of its molecule, it has an ammonium "radical" (one nitrogen atom and four hydrogen atoms) masquerading as a metal. Its acid part is also a radical: one nitrogen and three oxygen atoms (see chart...
Ammonium nitrate's outwardly peaceful molecule perpetually strains with suppressed desires. The oxygen and hydrogen atoms are not combined with each other, as their natures prompt them to be. They fret in frustrated juxtaposition, kept from an explosive embrace by a frangible barrier of chemical propriety...
Under ordinary conditions, the straining atoms contain themselves. But a sufficient disturbance, such as heat or shock in the presence of certain impurities, shatters the barrier. Every oxygen atom grabs two hydrogen atoms. Every pair of nitrogen atoms, deserted, grabs a single oxygen. In consummating these unions, the atoms generate enormous heat-and the salt flashes into gases: superheated steam (H2O) and nitrous oxide...