Worried about liquids on planes? You can make rocket fuel from chocolate!

[Ian David]

From Popular Science:


Rocket Food
Want to see a real sugar high? Launch a model rocket with Oreo cookies

By Theodore Gray


Potassium perchlorate (the powder) provides oxygen for combustion just like air does, but in much more concentrated form, so the candy bar burns faster.

Food contains an amazing amount of energy. If you don’t believe it, feed candy to some kids and watch them bounce off the walls. Of course, tot-baiting is only one way to turn food energy into noise and destruction.

A king-size Snickers has 541 Calories. That’s Calories with a capital “C,” or 1,000 lowercase calories. A small-“c” calorie represents the energy required to heat one gram of water by one degree Celsius. So that Snickers could theoretically heat a gram of water 541,000 degrees or, more realistically, bring a gallon and a half of water from nearly freezing to nearly boiling.

The energy in food is typically released when, through a complex biochemical pathway, sugars, starches and fats react with oxygen from the lungs. It’s a form of slow-motion burning that, thankfully, rarely involves fire.

But you can liberate the same amount of energy in much less time by mixing the Snickers with a more concentrated source of oxygen—say, the potent oxidizer potassium perchlorate. The result is basically rocket fuel. Ig­nited on an open fireproof table, it burns vigorously, consuming an entire candy bar in a few seconds with a rushing tower of fire. If you could bottle the energy of kids playing and turn it into a Molotov cocktail, this is what it would look like.

More:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/600152d7d441b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

[tives12]

1. It's not really dangerous but...

The Mentos in the Diet Coke thing is pretty cool too. I don't think it would take down a plane, but it would send your fellow passengers to a new level of pissed-offness that you probably wouldn't want to experience.

[TlalocW]

2. Not for lack of trying though...

Coke/Mentos bottle rockets.

http://my.break.com/Media/View.aspx?ContentID=123786

TlalocW

[gauguin57]

3. You make fuel from my chocolate when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!

Get yer mitts off my Snickers bar, b**ch!

[hootinholler]

4. It’s a form of slow-motion burning that, thankfully, rarely involves fire.

Rarely involves fire? Rarely means sometimes it does, right?

-Hoot

[Sinti]

5. You apparently don't have children.

Let the get hold of a bag of Oreos, and you'd better lock up your matches :)