N2O formation enthalpy is just 82kJ/mol. For comparison, water is 240kJ/mol. It ... | Hacker News

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		cyberax 7 months ago \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap N2O formation enthalpy is just 82kJ/mol. For comparison, water is 240kJ/mol. It doesn't sound so bad, but when translated into grams, it's 1.86kJ/g for N2O and 13.3kJ/g for water. In other words, when burning a gram of hydrogen, you get about 120kJ of energy. When decomposing a gram of N2O, you barely get 2kJ.

saagarjha 7 months ago [–]

You’re off by a factor of 10 somewhere

cyberax 7 months ago | [–]

Nope? A gram of water is mostly oxygen. Hydrogen is just 2/18 of the water mass, so that's where the factor of 9 comes from.

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