Is this possible as an inexhaustible supply of rocket fuel

Question

Is this possible?

A chemical genius develops a way to collect the exhaust of a rocket motor and herd them into precisely sized chambers by using electrical fields to guide the electrons and protons, the neutral neutrons are led into a separate chamber, the collecting is done by a nozzle which has no detrimental effect on the thrust of the rocket. The particles are reinserted into the rocket in the precise amounts as they appeared in the original fuel, the rocket motor sees this as new fuel and burns it as such, the motor creates a thrust of one g, providing artificial gravity for an indefinite span of time, a space ship fitted with this device can reach speeds of millions of miles per hour in space, and need no extra fuel.

Answer 1

It won't work because there's a "law with which all energy must agree. Whenever it changes form, it loses quality (in other words...) d**n that rising entropy!"

Answer 2

The molecules put in the rocket are the same that shoot out the back, but the chemical bonds have changed.  It would take energy to reset the chemical bonds from the exhaust into what they were for the fuel.

Answer 3

Violates conservation of momentum.  To stop these high speed particles for recycling causes a thrust in the wrong direction.

Answer 4

Nope, that's a perpetual motion machine. It requires energy from somewhere to collect the exhaust. Where is that energy coming from?

Answer 5

"the collecting is done by a nozzle which has no detrimental effect on the thrust of the rocket"

Not possible.  The thrust is generated by pushing the particles behind the rocket.  If the rocket is catching the particles, it's pushing against itself and there is no thrust.

Ignoring that, it still won't work.  The energy required to recombine the burned particles back into their original form so that they can be burned again must be greater than the energy gained from burning them.

So there's a physics reason and a chemistry reason why it won't work.

Answer 6

Sounds too much like a perpetual motion machine.