SILANAT
1st inorganic Si3N4-based fuel
A revolution in fuel chemistry:
All fuels and heating sources are based on combustion of carbon containing compounds such as natural gas, coal and oil. These carbon-based fuels have a common disadvantage: They react with oxygen in the air during combustion and form CO2 - carbon dioxide. The efficiency of this combustion is between 10-30%. The burnt carbon forms hot CO2 at the same time heating a large part of air nitrogen. Such a combustion always requires a chimney or an exhaust system, these hot gases therefore unnecessarily heat up the atmosphere. To get out of this trap, it was urgently necessary to find a fuel that contains no carbon and if possible also reacts with the nitrogen of the air. There are many chemical elements which react with atmospheric nitrogen under heat. A chemical element Silicon, which is similar to carbon cannot form gaseous dioxide, but burns to dust like sand, that is easy to be filtered (ash). This element moreover burns with the nitrogen of the air to a silicon-nitrogen (silicon-nitride), also an ash. It was only a question of time, after the University of Cologne succeeded to win gasoline and oils from silicon to use these novel materials as fuels and heating fuels. This chemical thought-idea was hidden a long time and is waiting for its implementation for the blessing of mankind. It took many decades to find methods, to economically produce the basic fuel silicon from sand to in turn with cheap hydrogen to convert it to silicon petroleum or silicon oils. Experiments have shown that this type of combustion does not generate hot gases except water vapor. The efficiency level is at an unconceivable 90% due to no heating of the atmosphere! The patenting of these ideas began in 1970 and lasted until 2013. Much time was lost due to interference from the petroleum-industry refining complex fearing competition. The world's remaining coal and oil reserves-stocks are too good to be burned. These new ideas, like the exploration of the discovery of petroleum in Titusville by Rockefeller belong into responsible hands of far sighted personalities. Potential use of these new fuel sources:
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Larger heating systems for high-rise or other buildings
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Replacement of nuclear power stations to generate electricity
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Use in Aeronautics and space
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Maritime and rail use
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The development of new engines for automotive
Process for the production of crystalline silicon from oil shale
To introduce Silanes as a new propulsion and fuel system, means first of all to inexpensively produce the raw material with a new chemical process. The oil/tar mixture is broken down into carbon and hydrogen with a 3000 degrees hot welding flame. The sands are hereby converted into gaseous Silicon fluoride. The Silicon fluoride is now transformed with a subsequent process using aluminum granulate and a thermite reaction into crystalline silicon. The Silicon obtained by this method would be unbelievably affordable for today's conditions. This process generates enormous amounts of heat from the tar, which is nothing else than solid hydrocarbon and large amounts of hydrogen, which regulates the pyrolysis. The gas surplus would be transformed into 3-phase current or feed into natural gas networks. The efficiency in the combustion of fossil heating fuels, such as natural gas, coal and oil is between 10 and 30 %. This low efficiency is due to the fact that carbonaceous compounds react with oxygen in the air and the resulting hot CO2 only heats the nitrogen which makes up most of the largest part of the air. Such combustions always require a chimney or an exhaust system, therefore unnecessarily heating up the atmosphere. It was urgently necessary to find a fuel source that contained no carbon to get out of this trap and if possible would react with the nitrogen of the air. Silicon a chemical element, which is similar to carbon, produces no gaseous dioxide, but burns to dust-shaped sand that is easy to filter (ASH). This element in addition burns with nitrogen of the air to a Silico-nitrogen (silicon nitride),also ash. Experiments have shown that this type of combustion generates no hot gases except water vapor . The efficiency is now 90 %, because the atmosphere is not heated.
Drilling techniques without the use of conventional drills
Cost intensive drilling with oilrigs is here being replaced with a chemical process. Fluorine-hydrogen is being burned with a welding flame to HF-gas, which chemically decomposes rock into gaseous fluoride. A ring shaped burner lowered into the drill hole causes that the toxic gases escape into sodium hydroxide turning the fluoride into non-toxic salts. It is possible with this technique to produce drill holes with small diameters. One can reach depth of up to 10 or 20 kilometers instead of 5000 meters at present. Real hot rock can be reached this way to generate depth hot water steam, which can then be surface converted into electricity without the use of coal, exactly what we need in the future. The conditions would be created to in the future dispense with the use of nuclear energy.
Addicional manufacturing aspects
Higher silanes from this pure silicon are now prepared (such as under repeated modified Mueller-Rochow synthesis with silyl chlorides), whereby those silyl chlorides could either be silicone chemical waste or could be obtained from mono- and/or disilane. The higher silanes thus added are subsequently burned -releasing energy- with air to form water and silicon nitride (Si3N4). The silicon nitride is converted into ammonia (NH3) with the formation of silicates, in order to be split into nitrogen + water in the further course of combustion, thus closing the nitrogen cycle. Silicon (Si) is located just below carbon (C) in the periodic table of chemical elements and is consequently very similar to the latter. However, the hydrogen compounds of silicon have some differences to hydrocarbons. Thus, it should be primarily considered that di-/tri-/tetrasilane are self-igniting in air. This makes it all the more important to use higher silanes, such as penta-/decasilane, the producibility of which was proven as early as 1968 at a Cologne university. The critical factor is that higher silanes become increasingly stable with increasing chain length, so that heptasilane, for example, is no longer self-igniting from room temperature, making higher silanes much safer to handle, "less toxic" and, above all, – good as – diesel identical. In short, the basic prerequisites for producing/using higher silanes as a new basic raw material are scientifically-technically given, although incomplete (which I now know how to remedy –relatively easily). Individual process steps for this are known in principle and can be found in textbooks or, here and there, in patent specifications. It is therefore all the more surprising that this fuel, which has actually been available for over ½ a century and is more climate-friendly, has not yet been used. However, this is due to the problem I described at the beginning of this article, namely that conventional science is wrong in many sensitive areas, so this fuel innovation cannot be applied industrially unless the above-mentioned Planck-Einstein equation is used as a basis.
