MOF-based alternative could make for safer, cleaner rocket fuel

Hydrazine rocket fuel is highly toxic, carcinogenic and unstable, making it incredibly dangerous to work with. Scientists at McGill believe their new alternative, based on metal-organic frameworks, will lead to cleaner, safer, more controllable rockets.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

MOF-based alternative could make for safer, cleaner rocket fuel

Hydrazine rocket fuel is highly toxic, carcinogenic and unstable, making it incredibly dangerous to work with. Scientists at McGill believe their new alternative, based on metal-organic frameworks, will lead to cleaner, safer, more controllable rockets.

more…

There’s only one paragraph in the whole of that link that actually means anything, though calling it a “framework” seems self-contradictory.

“This team has figured out how to induce hypergolic behavior in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based on zinc, cobalt and cadmium, using acetylene or vinyl substituents as the oxidizers. The team created six such MOF-based fuels, and demonstrated that they can be fine-tuned for a range of different properties, including the all-important ignition delay, or ID value. Several of these fuels showed ultra-short IDs below 5 milliseconds.”

“Hypergolic zeolitic imidazolate frameworks”

Still doesn’t make sense, read further.

“solid fuel”

Well, a zeolitic framework would have to be, wouldn’t it. No hypergolic fuels in current use are. I can’t see a use for a hypergolic solid fuel, but presumably there is one.

“ball-milling equimolar amounts of a metal source and a substituted imidazole, in the presence of a liquid additive and a salt catalyst.”

OK, what happens to the oxygen? I don’t see any oxygen in the following chemical diagram. No information is given on the amount (or percentage) of product.

“Hypergolic properties were evaluated by measuring the ID for each material using a standard drop test, in which a single 10-μl drop of a liquid oxidizer was released from a fixed height”

That’s a hybrid fuel – much more complicated to use than both a solid fuel and a liquid hypergolic.

“The prepared MOFs are expected to be microporous”

That’s standard for zeolites.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

MOF-based alternative could make for safer, cleaner rocket fuel

Hydrazine rocket fuel is highly toxic, carcinogenic and unstable, making it incredibly dangerous to work with. Scientists at McGill believe their new alternative, based on metal-organic frameworks, will lead to cleaner, safer, more controllable rockets.

more…

There’s only one paragraph in the whole of that link that actually means anything, though calling it a “framework” seems self-contradictory.

“This team has figured out how to induce hypergolic behavior in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based on zinc, cobalt and cadmium, using acetylene or vinyl substituents as the oxidizers. The team created six such MOF-based fuels, and demonstrated that they can be fine-tuned for a range of different properties, including the all-important ignition delay, or ID value. Several of these fuels showed ultra-short IDs below 5 milliseconds.”

“Hypergolic zeolitic imidazolate frameworks”

Still doesn’t make sense, read further.

“solid fuel”

Well, a zeolitic framework would have to be, wouldn’t it. No hypergolic fuels in current use are. I can’t see a use for a hypergolic solid fuel, but presumably there is one.

“ball-milling equimolar amounts of a metal source and a substituted imidazole, in the presence of a liquid additive and a salt catalyst.”

OK, what happens to the oxygen? I don’t see any oxygen in the following chemical diagram. No information is given on the amount (or percentage) of product.

“Hypergolic properties were evaluated by measuring the ID for each material using a standard drop test, in which a single 10-μl drop of a liquid oxidizer was released from a fixed height”

That’s a hybrid fuel – much more complicated to use than both a solid fuel and a liquid hypergolic.

“The prepared MOFs are expected to be microporous”

That’s standard for zeolites.

> “ball-milling equimolar amounts of a metal source and a substituted imidazole, in the presence of a liquid additive and a salt catalyst.”

Oops, formatting error.

“ball-milling equimolar amounts of a metal source (ZnO, CoCO3, Cd(OH)2, or CdO) and a substituted imidazole, in the presence of a liquid additive and a salt catalyst.”

If they’d used pure metal instead as a metal source then the result would be more believable.