• Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    CO2 is a nice substance for this due to its relatively high temperature of fusion at modest pressures (and cheap ubiquity). I’d wondered why this wasn’t more of a thing with air, using excess energy to liquefy it, to later let the LN2 to be vaporized/expanded in a turbine and the LOX to be used in rockets or something. But deep cryogenics are more challenging.

    Or maybe use excess power to electrolyze water for fuel cell use later?

    But yeah, CO2 makes a lot of sense despite its relatively poorer specific heat ratio for adiabatic expansion compared to mono and diatomic gasses.