Development of Polyamine/Alkanolamine-based Hypergolics with hydrogen Peroxide: A new route to N-methylimidazole with MDEA as a promising green fuel

Abstract

A novel non-ionic liquid fuel based on a mixture of N-methylimidazole (MIm) and N-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) called PAHyp 2 which reacts hypergolically with hydrogen peroxide is presented in this work. To study the hypergolic behaviors, a drop test setup able of capturing simultaneous high-speed schlieren, infrared and visible imaging was used. While infrared images capture the temperature history of the ignition process, schlieren images offer advantages of capturing the pressure waves as well as providing better visualization of the morphological description of the liquid dynamics. PAHyp 2 with hydrogen peroxide has specific impulse 6% lower than hydrazine-based fuels but because of its higher density it requires smaller propellant tanks for a given mission. In order to meet the requirements of good chemical stability and low viscosity of<30 cP, the proportion of MIm should range between 40 and 50% (or 60 to 50% of MDEA) and the amount of catalyst should be no more than 3 wt%. FTIR spectra showed no chemical degradation. By adding 3 wt% catalyst, the shortest ignition delay time of 8.8 ms was recorded. Based on these preliminary results, we believe that just like the other polyamiane/akanolamine-based fuels recently reported by our group, this new recipe is also a promising candidate to replace conventional toxic propellants and as such should be further studied.