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Cyanoborohydride‐Based Ionic Liquids as Green Aerospace Bipropellant Fuels
Author(s) -
Zhang Qinghua,
Yin Ping,
Zhang Jiaheng,
Shreeve Jean'ne M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201402704
Subject(s) - propellant , ionic liquid , hydrazine (antidepressant) , materials science , combustion , ignition system , environmentally friendly , organic chemistry , chemical engineering , chemistry , engineering , aerospace engineering , chromatography , ecology , biology , catalysis
Abstract In propellant systems, the most common bipropellants are composed of two chemicals, a fuel (or reducer) and an oxidizer. Currently, the choices for propellant fuels rely mainly on hydrazine and its methylated derivatives, even though they are extremely toxic, highly volatile, sensitive to adiabatic compression (risk of detonation), and, therefore, difficult to handle. With this background, the search for alternative green propellant fuels has been an urgent goal of space science. In this study, a new family of cyanoborohydride‐based ionic liquids (ILs) with properties and performances comparable to hydrazine derivatives were designed and synthesized. These new ILs as bipropellant fuels, have some unique advantages including negligible vapor pressure, ultra‐short ignition delay (ID) time, and reduced synthetic and storage costs, thereby showing great application potential as environmentally friendly fuels in bipropellant formulations.