Luigi Crocco, in Italy, had another idea, and was able to talk the Ministry of Aviation into putting up a bit of money to try it out. The idea was that of a monopropellant. A monopropellant is a liquid which contains in itself both the fuel and the oxidizer, either as a single molecule such as methyl nitrate, CH3NO3 in which the oxygens can burn the carbon and the hydrogens, or as a mixture of a fuel and an oxidizer, such as a solution of benzene in N2O4 . On paper, the idea looks attractive. You have only one fluid to inject into the chamber, which simplifies your plumbing, your mixture ratio is built in and stays where you want it, you don't have to worry about building an injector which will mix the fuel and the oxidizer properly, and things are simpler all around. But! Any intimate mixture of a fuel and an oxidizer is a potential explosive, and a molecule with one reducing (fuel) end and one oxidizing end, separated by a pair of firmly crossed fingers, is an invitation to disaster. All of which Crocco knew. But with a species of courage which can be distinguished only with difficulty from certifiable lunacy, he started in 1932 on a long series of test firings with nitroglycerine (no less!) only sightly tranquilized by the addition of 30 percent of methyl alchohol. By some miracle he managed to avoid killing himself, and he extended the work to the somewhat less sensitive nitromethane, CH3NO2. His results were promising, but the money ran out in 1935, and nothing much came of the investigation
Ignition!, John D. Clark
