The majority of current hypergolic ionic liquids (ILs) are hypergolic (spontaneous ignition upon contact between a fuel and oxidizer) with nitric acid in one of its several formulations.  Only very few have been found to be hypergolic with higher performing N2O4.  While ILs can be considered �green� or less hazardous in certain aspects when compared to hydrazine, both nitric acid and N2O4  are highly hazardous.  To gain a true advantage, a more environmentally friendly oxidizer must be considered.  Hydrogen peroxide might be an attractive alternative for some systems, especially because of its benign decomposition products. Although the permissible exposure limit for hydrogen peroxide is only 1 ppm in air, the high boiling points of its water solutions, 141�C (90% hydrogen peroxide) and 148�C (98% hydrogen peroxide), result in relatively low vapor pressures at 25�C of only 0.5 KPa and 0.3 KPa, respectively.  In 2011 we showed that ILs can be hypergolic with H2O2 but it required complexed aluminumborohydride anions to realize acceptable ignition delay (ID) times.1   Here we describe how certain ILs can be employed as ignition enhancing catalyst to make many ILs hypergolic.1Schneider, S.; Hawkins, T.; Ahmed, Y.; Rosander, M.; Hudgens, L.; Mills Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2011 , 50, 5886.

Catalytic ignition of ionic liquid fuels by ionic liquids

248th National Meeting (2014)

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