Energetic materials

Unlike the study of energetics itself, energetic materials are made up of high chemical energy levels. Some scientists consider anything that can accumulate, store or release energy to be energetic material, but for the most part energetic materials are what you see in this list:

• Rocket fuel
• High explosives
• Chemical explosives
• Propellants
• Pyrotechnics
• Smokeless gunpowder
• Diesel and gasoline fuel

[edit] Usefulness of materials that are energetic

In terms of the scientific version of materials that can be energetic, there is a proposed usefulness for them. If left to waste these materials are considered highly hazardous to the environment. For some there is only one way properly to dispose of them. For others there is no way to dispose of them without having some small or moderate impact on the environment around them.

The military uses materials that are energetic for military research, mainly for weapons use. However, it is theorized that these same materials could be useful for creating new and innovative fuel alternatives. The question that every researcher in this field asks of any energetic material they find is, could this be recycled and used as a fuel source? The idea is to use the method of combustion to create a fuel source from one or more of these pre-used materials.

[edit] Other kinds of energetic materials

Other kinds of energetic material border on mad scientist type of research, at least according to some professional scientists, who consider any other study of energy to be somewhat laughable. For these “mad scientists” there are other materials that are not yet proven to provide enough force to be used for fuel, but are nonetheless considered energetic.

For example, a flower is seen as an object that accumulates, stores and releases energy. Through the power of the sun and rain, it accumulates the energy it needs to grow from a seed into a flower. It seems to store the energy in order to maintain itself and then releases energy into the ground when it dies in the form of food for other living objects such as worms.

Humans are seen as energetic material. We are also seen as being made up of energetic material. We accumulate energy when we eat food and store the nutrients in our body for later. We release energy when we walk, run, read and even when we watch the television.

[edit] Usefulness of other kinds of energetic material

While there are few uses of the energy from other energetic material, there are some theories about how the energy they take, store and release could be used in the near to distant future. Renewable sources are always being sought after by different companies trying to find the next best thing in the gasoline and oil industries.

[edit] Fantasy or reality?

Perhaps the energy some plants, food, animals or even us human beings release will someday be harnessed and used for a need the world has. Capturing the energy that is transferred is of great importance to many researchers in the field of energetics – especially if that energy can be harnessed, copied and recycled repeatedly.