Collaborate Disseminate
If someone in 2023 has ever had much call to use turpentine, chances are good it was something to do with paint or other wood finishes, like varnish. Natural turpentine …read more Continue reading Retrotechtacular: The Story of Turpentine
Old diesel engines from various car manufacturers like Mercedes and Volkswagen are highly prized even in modern times. Not only were these engines incredibly reliable and mechanically simple, but they …read more Continue reading Diesel Station Wagon Runs on Plastic
With a seemingly endless list of shortages of basic items trotted across newsfeeds on a daily basis, you’d be pardoned for not noticing any one shortage in particular. But in …read more Continue reading Mining and Refining: Helium
When you’re standing at the gas station filling up your car, watching those digits on the pump flip by can be a sobering experience. Fuel prices, especially the price of …read more Continue reading Electric Vehicles, the Gasoline Problem, and Synthetic Fuels
If there’s a chemical with a cooler name than “fuming nitric acid,” we can’t think of it. Nearly pure nitric acid is useful stuff, especially if you’re in the business of making rocket fuels and explosives. But the low-end nitric acid commonly available tops out at about 68% pure, so if you want the good stuff, you’ll have to synthesize fuming nitric acid yourself. (And by “good stuff”, we mean be very careful with the resulting product.)
Fuming nitric acid comes in two colors – red fuming nitric acid (RFNA), which is about 90% pure and has some dissolved nitrogen …read more
