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Is there still no use for sulfur?

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simonchvz

simonchvz

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Rainbowdesign said:

Just add some good and realistic recipe ideas and i will add something to make from sulfur to my mod.

Somewhat realistic:

  • Lead+Sulfur = construction for high-density, low-heat lead acid battery
  • Sulfur + Phosphorite + Water = alternative fertilizer recipe
  • Sulfur + reed fiber = rubber
    • Just add some good and realistic rubber ideas and I will post them for you to make a mod out of it ;)
  • Sulfur + coal = reed fibers (via sulfer polymerization)

Less realistic:

  • Lead+Sulfur+Natural Gas = leaded gasoline, to be used in a petrol generator (which I understand to now accept multiple fuel liquids) or another generator that outputs some nasty horrible gas
  • Sulfur + Meal Lice + Wheat = recipe for a super high calorie, grisly quality Devil Cake
  • Sulfur + Naptha + Ethanol = an espresso-like +5 morale buff that confers Flatulent for the duration and confers the Flammable property to the dupe
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Nightinggale

Nightinggale

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, simonchvz said:

Lead+Sulfur+Natural Gas = leaded gasoline, to be used in a petrol generator (which I understand to now accept multiple fuel liquids) or another generator that outputs some nasty horrible gas

Lead in fuel is a horrible idea and it should never have been in fuel to begin with. The issue is a gasoline engine shouldn't ignite the fuel before the spark plug turns on or the pressure will try to push the engine the other way around, something which can break the engine. At the same time the fuel/air mixture should have a high compression because the higher it is, the more efficient the engine is, hence lowering fuel consumption. This means the goal of gasoline isn't to make it burn, but to make it not burn despite increasing the compression (pressure).

One company invented something to increase compression and patented it. Another company wanted equally efficient cars, but couldn't get it due to the patent. They then came up with the idea to add something unburnable to the fuel and they came up with lead (which strictly speaking is a chemical compound to make it liquid). Since the lead made it harder for the fuel to burn, they could increase compression and gain the same effect as the other company's patent without violating the patent. To make sure their customers would be hooked on the company and the fuel supply from the company, the valves in the engines were designed to fail if not exposed to lead, meaning it shouldn't be possible to use fuel from any other companies.

Eventually the original patent ran out, but now all cars were designed to be stuck on lead and the lead burning continued until politicians banned it.

Now the big question: when was it discovered that lead exhaust would be dangerous? The first warning came internally from the company before any leaded engine was announced. Other warnings showed up from other sources (like universities) after it was announced, but still not being sold. However those warnings were ignored because... money.

Lead in fuel makes no sense at all and the only reason why we had it at some point was corporate greed. I see no reason why we should add leaded fuel to ONI.

So if we can't use lead, what do we use? First of all, the simple solution is to use diesel because rather than avoiding self igniting, they are designed to do it, which is why diesel engines perform very differently. However Mazda makes a gasoline engine, which has diesel like compression without adding anything toxic. All it does is to add air without oxygen to increase the pressure and an engine has plenty of air without oxygen. It's called exhaust.

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Nightinggale

Nightinggale

Posted
Posted

Maybe we should consider the combustion properties of sulfur. Sulfur is actually an important part of coal (well maybe more historical than today) because while it doesn't really contribute with heat, it lowers the temperature where coal ignites. This means it's easier to get coal to burn if the sulfur contents is higher.

Sulfur is however not wanted anymore after it has been linked to acid rain, but that doesn't change how it interacts with coal during combustion.

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Nightinggale

Nightinggale

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Just now, Yunru said:

This after a lengthy post about how it was used to increase compression, a perfectly sensible thing to do?

It would be if it was the only way to do it. However it wasn't and there are plenty of ways to reach that goal, some of those predates adding lead. It was purely about company A making money. Company B wants the money instead and start to poison people to get the money.

If we take a modern comparison, wind power has become cheaper than nuclear. Nuclear plant owners make less money, but they can cut cost if they dump all the waste into a river. This will (presumably) make nuclear cheaper than wind again. Looking at the end result (power to the consumers) it makes sense. Looking at it from a health point of view, it doesn't make sense at all because we know how to provide power to everybody without making everything radioactive.

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Machenoid

Machenoid

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Nightinggale said:

but they can cut cost if they dump all the waste into a river.

Actually even just storing the waste isn't ideal either because the idle half-life of the materials are several magnitudes greater than the storage units. Not to mention from the start that nuclear waste isn't really "waste" like garbage; the materials can be recycled in specialized reactors that makes them useful for power generation (again)

... But all those processes also allow the creation of nuclear bombs, which means they have to be prohibited if everyone wants to "play nice" on the world stage.

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fredhp

fredhp

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Yunru said:

This after a lengthy post about how it was used to increase compression, a perfectly sensible thing to do?

About fuels:

 

I dont know how it is in the rest of the world, but here, in Brazil we dont use lead in the gasoline, we use Ethanol instead, in a mixture of 25% of ethanol, 75% of gasoline. 

Sometimes it is 20%, sometimes is 30% depending on the sugarcane production, gasoline costs - the ratio is regulated by the governement, but is never above 30% or lower than 20%.

Modern cars and motorcycles can use gasoline or pure ethanol as fuel (there is both at the gas station), but ethanol is less efficient than gasoline, so at the current prices isn't worth use pure ethanol.

Even ethanol being less expensive than gasoline, the milleage is lower, so ethanol is only worth if it is less than 70% of the gasoline price. 

My Motorcycle ( Yamaha Lander 2020) can use both fuels, but i only use gasoline :)

There is also GNV - natural gas - in some gas stations - is it possible to install kits that allow a gasoline or ethanol engine to use that. The price of GNV is very very low, but the engine loses much power. Its nice for the day to day traffic jams or in a  road - if more horse power are needed, just flip a switch to put the car in gasoline mode. In a low cost car with small engine it is perfect.

Old cars (like my 1996 Ford Escort ) have engines capable of use only  one type of fuel - my Escort runs only on gasoline, but it was possible to purchase a ethanol only version at the time (the dual fuel tecnology doesn't existed at the time). Ethanol only engines has some problems in cold days - sometimes it is difficult to start, and there was need to keep the engine running until it heats before use the car.

Diesel fueled cars are outlawed in Brasil - you can't have one. 

Diesel is only for trucks, SUV, off-roads and machinery. All trucks are diesel powered, some SUVs has gasoline/ethanol or diesel versions. This is not due pollution or ecollogy, but because in the past (+- 1976) petroleum was imported and diesel has governement subsides, so the law was made this way, to reduce consumption.  Today this is pointless, there is no subsides, diesel is the less expensive of all fuels, but nobody revoke the law yet.... My SUV are diesel (1997 Silverado) , and, in my opinion, nothing beats the pleasure of drive that SUV.
 

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Nightinggale

Nightinggale

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, fredhp said:

I dont know how it is in the rest of the world, but here, in Brazil we dont use lead in the gasoline, we use Ethanol instead, in a mixture of 25% of ethanol, 75% of gasoline.

That's a general picture for most countries. 25% is high and a mean to avoid imports, but expect 10% or something like that in most countries. It's a bit disputed though because 100% gasoline has cleaner exhaust. There is also the point about fuel efficiency. Some people claim 100% gasoline use less gasoline than if it would if you add 25% ethanol due to how efficient the combustion is. Other researchers says the more ethanol, the better.

11 minutes ago, fredhp said:

All trucks are diesel powered

This is the same everywhere. Because diesel engines don't have sparkplugs, they have compression ignition. For that to work, they need high compression, which requires a long stroke (the distance the piston travels up and down). Both the compression ignition and the long stroke will increase torque. If you want to start with a heavy load and/or uphill, you really want high torque. This is why almost all vehicles heavier than 3.5 tons are diesel anywhere in the world.

Gasoline engines have a short stroke, which makes it a lot easier for them to both go into high RPM and to change RPM. This makes the acceleration better and you want to use gasoline on the racetrack.

There is a huge difference in how diesel and gasoline engines are controlled. Before computers, only diesel locomotives could connect multiple units together and drive using one driver. Gasoline (yes they existed at one point) had one driver for each unit. Trains are also heavy, meaning torque is often more important than horsepower. Also the diesel electric setup used by most trains today means the diesel engine can be put in constant RPM mode, something which reduces wear significantly. They are expected to last at least 30 years of daily operation and 50 years aren't unheard of.

Before the jet engine, planes used gasoline engines because of the better power to weight ratio compared to diesel. However gasoline needs to have the correct air to fuel mix, meaning a high flying plane like the Lancaster had a man in the cockpit with the task of monitoring all 4 engines to adjust the air/fuel mixture as the plane changed altitude and the outside air pressure changed. In fact it took 5 people in the cockpit to fly those planes compared to just 2 people in modern planes.

There is a lot more to the diesel vs gasoline than fuel cost. It's actually about two very different engines, which performs very differently.

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Nightinggale

Nightinggale

Posted
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On 6/28/2019 at 2:41 PM, Rainbowdesign said:

Just add some good and realistic recipe ideas and i will add something to make from sulfur to my mod.

Water + sulfur = sulfuric acid.

Sulfuric acid + lead = heavy duty batteries.

The idea of lead-acid batteries seems dead in the public eye because they are big and heavy compared to their charge. They suck compared to both lithium and nickel based batteries in all parameters we normally look at. What they are really good at is taking a massive beating without being damaged. Diesel locomotives easily have upwards towards half a ton of batteries for the starter engine. They pull 500+ A while starting and charge with 100+ A and that's in each battery cell. They are rated for doing that multiple times a day, 7 days a week for a minimum of 10 years.

I'm not really sure how to implement that in ONI though because batteries doesn't have a limit to how many kW they can charge/discharge.

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