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Well... there's hydrazine (N2H4) which is the stuff they use as monopropellant rocket fuel. It burns even without the presence of oxygen and it's even more toxic and explosive than ammonia. It's the reason the capture crews for returning spacecrafts wear hazmat suits.

However hydrazine is liquid at room temperature and it can be converted to hydrazone (also being considered for fuel cells) which is solid at room temperature and non-reactive... until it comes into contact with water at which point it all turns back into hydrazine.

But yeah no there's really not a "nicer" fuel. Generally, if it has nitrogen in it and it isn't literally just nitrogen with itself, it's dangerous. And the more nitrogens it has the more dangerous it is.



If there is anything that would make ammonia seem warm and cuddly, it is indeed hydrazine!

Urea maybe? It’s almost non toxic and is 2x ammonia + a carbon monoxide molecule.

though not sure how efficient it would be to extract energy from.

Speaking of ‘extra nitrogen’s are generally bad’, a callout to the azides!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azide

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_azide


P.S. Found a sweet Hydrazine youtube video, and figured I needed to add it. [https://youtu.be/V3HuKQvRBUE?si=wTuEwvKJQkidKZAp]




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