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Liquid oxygen
Additional recommended knowledgeDue to its cryogenic nature, LOX can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle. Liquid oxygen is also a very powerful oxidising agent: organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen. Further; if soaked in LOX some can detonate unpredictably on subsequent contact. Petrochemicals often exhibit this behavior, including asphalt. LOX is a common liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen or kerosene. It was used in the very first rocket applications like the V2 missile and Redstone, R-7 Semyorka or Atlas boosters. LOX is useful in this role because it creates a high specific impulse. LOX was also used in some early ICBMs, although more modern ICBMs do not use LOX because its cryogenic properties and need for regular replenishment to replace boiloff make it harder to maintain and launch quickly. Despite this, many modern rockets do use LOX, including the main engines on the Space Shuttle. During World War II, liquid oxygen was used as an oxidizer in several Nazi Germany military rocket designs, under name A-Stoff and Sauerstoff. LOX also had extensive use in making oxyliquit explosives, but is rarely used now due to a high rate of accidents. Liquid nitrogen has a significantly lower boiling point, at −196 °C (77 K) than oxygen's −183 °C (90 K), and vessels containing liquid nitrogen can condense oxygen from air: when most of the nitrogen has evaporated from such a vessel there is a risk that liquid oxygen remaining can react violently with organic material. Conversely, liquid nitrogen or liquid air can be oxygen-enriched by letting it stand in open air; atmospheric oxygen dissolves in it, while nitrogen evaporates preferentially. See also
Categories: Rocket oxidizers | Cryogenics | Oxygen |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Liquid_oxygen". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |