I've been posting on YORF for just over two years. At Scott's invitation, I'll say a bit more about myself. I say 'by invitation', because it ventures into non-rocket commercial activities.

I'm a BAR. My two boys dragged me back into rocketry a few years ago. I like building and they like flying. IIRC, my first model rocket was a 4FNC, Star Wars branded (Proton Torpedo?) starter set with the launch rod/pad mounted to a lantern battery. In high school, I moved from flat, farm-field lower central MI to hilly, forested Leelanau County, and gave up rocketry. Took up astronomy. My idea of fun at the time was wide field photography with an 8" schmidt camera using a C-14 as a guide scope. Did my own film gas hypering and developing.

Now I'm back building and flying at Bong. First from Brightonwoods Orchard, on B, just north of Bong. Eventually just at Bong - it's easier to plan set times away from my other activities that way. I tend to scratch building, mid power and Hummingbirds.

I'm a biochemist by education. Michigan Tech.

I'm a research chemist by vocation. UOP in DesPlaines, IL. UOP designs refineries and invents new catalysts and processes to put in them. I'm something of a specializing non-specialist. I dabble in wet chemistry and process chemistry. I also do automation and informatics. I'm my team's troubleshooter - hardware and software. I put a ACS national conference paper and co-authoring 15 patents in reactive chromatography and high-throughput screening of hetergeneous metal oxide and solid super-acid catalysts on my resume.

I have been a ham (N8OKM) and sometimes properly recall which end of a soldering iron is which.

Since 2001, I've also been the owner and cidermaker at AeppelTreow (apple-true) Winery. Located at Brightonwoods Orchard, on County B, straight north of the launch area at Bong. When I can't join you folks, I can still see and hear flights from the front door of the winery.

AeppelTreow specializes in 'hard' cider. We work almost exclusively with apples and pears. We make sparkling cider, in the champagne method, draft ciders in bottles and kegs, table wine styles, and fortified port-like styles. Our products tend to be dry. Sometimes tannic, using old English and French apple and pear varieties for a more traditional, less juicy, cider. We also do some flavored ciders for fun. I have been involved in the cider community from the beginning, traveling to talk about cider production and doing sensory and style training in a very analytical fashion that sometimes gets me dubbed 'The Professor'.

In 2009, Aeppeltreow became the first co-licensed winery/distillery in WI. We make apple brandy aged in WI oak, Sorghum Whiskey flavored with oak, apple, cherry and chestnut wood. And various fruit brandies, both aged and white, as opportunity arises.

I worship aroma.

Some of our products are handled by a national importer/broker and have made it to shelves in about 20 states. But only tiny amounts - we are very small! We don't ship. Don't ask. The rules for shipping alcohol make the rules for shipping rocket motors look simple.

I handle fermentation and paperwork. My wife of 22 years, Milissa (not a typo), does distillation and our label artwork.

I'm Charles. I'm very busy. I build and fly rockets to relax.

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Charles McGonegal
Ciderwright
AEppelTreow Winery & Distillery
Ad Astra Tabernamque!

I would be interested in the chemistry for pellet catalysts for H2O2. The current state of the art is silver coated screens.

Jerry

Hydrocarbon chemists tend to flee from O2 and O2 bearing molecules like screaming little girls.

I'm assuming that you're decomposing H2O2 prior to injection for combustion?

Anyone tried the Pt coated ceramic monolithic material from a catalyic converter?

It would be possible to do a silver version, too. And a quick search shows that certain iron ores might work. That might make for a cheap solution, if it were fast enough.

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Charles McGonegal
Ciderwright
AEppelTreow Winery & Distillery
Ad Astra Tabernamque!

Since catalyst screen beds are exceptionally expensive, cheap is not a prerequisite. They are also heavy with their high temperature of operation (800 C) unless very expensive metals are used. The idea is to minimize the mass on a flight weight rocket, but lowering the cost would be a nice but unnecessary side effect.

Most rockets throw away (or crash) the expensive bits on every flight anyway.

A monopropellant HTP rocket simply uses the steam from the decomposition as a mass flow device.

If you make a hybrid with traditional solid fuel or propellant, or a liquid injected hydrocarbon like Krosene or Methane, then you get a higher ISP albeit with increased complexity.

Jerry

Living nearby certainly has it's benefits! Wonderful stuff the Charles does make...

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