The process for creating extra Oxygen worked perfectly. He released the CO2 from the MAV fuel plant into the Hab. The HAB’s oxygenator pulled the excess CO2 out, converted it to solid Carbon, and liquid Oxygen, and stored both.
Creating Hydrogen worked according to plan as well. Mark set up a fume hood to contain the Hydrazine decomposition reaction. The idea was the released hydrogen would float to the top of the fume hood, where a small tube would lead it up to a small flame. This flame would ignite the hydrogen, which would then combine with the oxygen to create water.
The Hydrazine decomposed just fine, the problem came from the last step, a lot of the hydrogen bypassed the flame and didn’t burn.
The HAB’s atmosphere is now filled with hydrogen. The atmospheric processor won’t pull it out of the atmosphere because an excess of hydrogen was such a remote possibility that it just wasn’t designed to even detect hydrogen, much less remove it.
Mark reacted enough Hydrazine to make 130 Liters of Water by the time he noticed the problem. The water reclaimer pulled 70 liters out of the air and stored it in its tank. Some water is still in the air as Humidity, and some soaked into the soil. But if we ignore those two effects, and assume the entire missing 60 Liters was never made in the first place, what is the upper limit of un-reacted Hydrogen that is now in the Hab atmosphere?
How much enthalapy would be released if it all ignited at once? What would be the equivalent amount of TNT to generate the same release of enthalapy?
Mark took an air sample from the Hab out to one of the Rovers that has a better atmospheric analyzer then the Hab. It said that the Hydrogen composition of the Hab air is 64% Hydrogen by Volume. If the Hab is at least 276 cubic meters in volume, what is the lower limit on the amount of Hydrogen in the air?
How much enthalapy would be released if it all ignited at once? What would be the equivalent amount of TNT to generate the same release of enthalapy?
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