[TR] waterless coolant

[Jim Muller]

On 18 Jan 2010 at 0:10, Michael Porter wrote:

> > I thought nitrogen was inert.
> Nope, nitrogen is not inert.
> It forms covalent bonds with other elements (the "nitrate"
> in sodium nitrate is, for example, is nitrogen bonding
> covalently with oxygen to form the nitrate radical NO3-.

Indeed.  As a pure gas, which if memory serves is generally N2 though 
I wouldn't swear to it after so many years of breathing the stuff, it 
is relatively non-reactive.  This is a good thing considering how 
much of it there is.  But it does combine with other elements, 
including oxygen inside engines to produce NOx.

> The "nitrogen-enriched" business sounds like marketing razzmatazz.

Many years ago, seemingly a lifetime ago, I spent a week in Houston 
teaching Unix to a collection of folks at Texaco.  In our off-time 
conversations the subject of gasoline differences between brands came 
up.  They insisted that real differences did exist.  Of course they 
felt theirs was better, as was predictable.  Perhaps they had bought 
into their own company's marketing razzmatazz.  But at least they as 
insiders believed it.

-- 
Jim Muller
jimmuller at rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+