From: Alejandro Dubrovsky (s328940@student.uq.edu.au)
Date: Wed Jan 23 2002 - 11:35:55 MST
On Thu, 2002-01-24 at 02:38, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Louis Newstrom wrote:
> >
>
> Louis, *you're* doing it again. Right now diamond is expensive.
> Nanotechnology produces diamond as a waste product. If you convert carbon
> in its other forms into diamond, you get a large amount of energy *out* of
> the chemical reaction. That's why diamonds are so hard - you have to
> expend that amount of energy, add it back in, before you can break the
> molecular bonds.
Diamonds as a waste product? i hadn't heard that before. references?
>
> Speaking of which, Robert, are you sure that it's possible to consume
> diamond and oxygen as a fuel? Are you sure you aren't thinking of a
> rocket-suit that got you into orbit by turning something else, maybe
> acetylene, into the diamondoid suit?
Diamond is not such a stable configuration. Graphite is a more stable
carbon configuration at STP and it is definitely less stable than CO2,
so it should burn nicely. Googling around i find the following:
Standard Enthalpies of Formation:
Diamond 1.88 kj/mol
CO2 -393.5 kj/mol
so that's quite a nice release of energy.
Also on the same page:
Acetylene -26.7 kj/mol, so to convert acetylene to diamond you have to
put energy in.
( http://itl.chem.ufl.edu/2045_s00/lectures/lec_8.html for more on this)
Alejandro
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:11:56 MST