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How Do Nuclear Submarines Make Oxygen?- Smarter Every Day 251

How Do Nuclear Submarines Make Oxygen?- Smarter Every Day 251

SmarterEveryDay
5 HN recommenders · discussed 2021–2026
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About this video

A Smarter Every Day episode from aboard a nuclear submarine on how the crew makes breathable air. It covers oxygen generation from seawater, oxygen candles and CO2 scrubbing with amine.

Why it appears in the archive

Go-to link when oxygen candles, CO2 capture or submarine air quality come up.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

rtkwe · 2021-04 · rec

Not sure if it's the same stuff exactly or if the cost includes reprocessing but there's an amine cycle that seems to be mostly closed that's used for CO2 removal on submarines. So it's just used to separate CO2 from the rest of the output. I think that's what this sentence is talking about: > Notably, it is projected that this solvent can operate at a regeneration heat rate of 2.0 GJ per tonne CO2 for post-combustion capture Smarter Every Day did a video on it and atmosphere management on a submarine more generally which is pretty neat. The CO2 scrubbing is around 20 minutes. [VIDEO]

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nielsbot · 2021-06 · rec

You might find this series from Smarter Every Day interesting. [VIDEO] I didn't find a bit about how they make drinking water, but here's an episode about how they regenerate their oxygen on a nuclear sub.

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CharlesW · 2022-04 · rec

I really enjoyed this Smarter Every Day episode that talks about maintaining air quality on a submarine: [VIDEO]

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rdl · 2022-05 · rec

Yes, but the context of this post was emergency systems which are purely chemical. For routine operations on e.g. a submarine, [LINK] As other people have mentioned, this is a great introduction to the topic: [VIDEO]

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helsinkiandrew · 2023-08 · rec

The SmarterEveryDay YouTube channel did a slightly more indepth series of videos aboard a nuclear sub, obviously still censored, but educational. [LINK] The video on producing oxygen was particularly enlightening: [VIDEO]

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nielsbot · 2022-05 · reference

Smarter Every Day did an interesting series of videos about nuclear submarines. They use these candles to help replenish the oxygen in them: [VIDEO]

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tofof · 2023-01 · reference

They burn at 600C (1100F) so I don't think you'd want to view the reaction directly; usually they have to be deliberately contained to contain the heat to sustain the reaction. [VIDEO] (linked to correct timestamp) shows the remains of a burned one and loading fresh ones on a submarine.

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Retric · 2023-02 · reference

Yea it produces chlorine. Nuclear subs need to use reverse osmosis first to get around that problem when they want to produce Oxygen from seawater. [VIDEO]

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