A study on doping of high energy boron powder into liquid fuel JP-10

Abstract

The immobilization of high energy material particles into liquid fuels to enhance its energy content for the volume limited aerospace application is an excellent idea as these particles possess higher heating values than liquid fuels. Among different type of metals and metalloids, elemental boron has highest volumetric heat of combustion (136 kJ/cm³). Technological issue of using boron in liquid fuel is that boron particles undergo aggregation and coagulation which results in large size particles precipitation. This work is undertaken to explore the possibility of introducing boron into liquid fuel JP-10. This liquid fuel (exo-THDCPD) is prepared in house via single step method by using mesoporous zeolite supported metal nano-catalyst in a high-pressure reactor. The boron particles of 640 nm average particle size has been obtained from one of our sister lab and characterized. Selection of surfactants has been done for better dispersion of boron particles into liquid fuel. A variety of surfactants, such as oleic acid, sorbitan-oleate, and tween, have been tested for stability of boron particle suspensions and evaluated by sedimentation test i.e. visual method and by zeta potential meter. Different concentrations of boron particles like 0.5, 1, 2 and 10 wt % of boron into JP-10 fuel is dispersed by using surfactant and the mixture is subjected to probe sonicator for 30 min under ambient temperature of 25–30 ℃ as good mixing must be ensured in order to disengage the particles. Sample of 10 wt% boron into liquid fuel JP-10 with 0.5 and 1.0 wt% surfactant addition (combination of Tween80 and Span80) has given stable suspension for 144 and 192 h, respectively.