Computational and Experimental Studies of Catalytic H2O2 Decomposition in Microscale Reactors

Widdis, Stephen; Hitt, Darren L.; Asante, Kofi; Cross, Michael; Varhue, W. J.; McDevitt, Michael R.

doi:10.2514/6.2012-3096

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…They found an Ea value of 56.8 kJ/mol. Widdis et al [18] also used an Ea from 30 to 60 kJ/mol in their simulation. William Sweeney et al [19] designed and performed an experiment to determine the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor of H2O2 decomposition.…”

Section: -5mentioning

confidence: 99%

A study of 50% liquid H2O2 decomposition on a silver catalyst for CubeSat applications

Parittothok,

Promoppatum,

Wongwiwat

2024

The 12TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (TSME-ICoME 2022)

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At present, microsatellites or CubeSats are widely used for various purposes including Earth observation, spacecraft technology demonstration, and scientific experiments. In general, CubeSat orbital time can be extended with an integrated micro-thruster. However, a CubeSat is too small to fit a conventional thruster. Therefore, a small-scale monopropellant thruster has been developed to extend the CubeSat orbital time. With the concept of a monopropellant thruster, 50% W/W hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was used as a propellant, and silver pellets were used as a catalyst. Hydrogen peroxide was initially stored in a pressurized stainless-steel tank and the flow rate was controlled by adjusting the pulse per minute of the solenoid valve to flow the hydrogen peroxide through the catalyst chamber at up to 1.25 mL/min. Type K thermocouples are placed at the exhaust and at the center of the chamber, which is filled with 1.7-mm mean-diameter silver pellets, to measure the temperature from the reaction. Temperature data were recorded using a NI-cDAQ during testing. The decomposition of H2O2 and silver catalyst produced water (H2O), oxygen (O2), and a significant amount of heat. It was found from the experiment that the activation energy of H2O2 decomposition was 36.59 kJ/mol and the pre-exponential factor was 13.3×10 8 1/s. This study demonstrated a method to estimate reaction rate constants of H2O2 which will benefit the further development of micro-thrusters for CubeSat applications. The use of a small-scale monopropellant thruster can extend the CubeSat orbital time and facilitate various scientific experiments and observations. It is exciting to see the advancements in CubeSat technology and the potential benefits it can bring to space exploration and research.

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Section: -5mentioning

confidence: 99%

A study of 50% liquid H2O2 decomposition on a silver catalyst for CubeSat applications

Parittothok,

Promoppatum,

Wongwiwat

2024

The 12TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (TSME-ICoME 2022)

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“…For examples, iodide, iron ions, manganese, Al2O3, MnO2, silver, gold, iron, platinum, catalase (enzyme catalyst), and many more. Several papers found discussing other type of catalyst for hydrogen peroxide decomposition such as by Essa et al, [8] and Widdis et al, [27] that used manganese oxides, and ruthenium oxides nanorods respectively. According to Widdis et al, [27] their experiment on the ruthenium oxides showed that the decomposition took place on the catalytic surfaces, but the magnitude of reactivity recorded is not as anticipated for the decomposition of 85% hydrogen peroxide.…”

Section: Silver Catalystmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several papers found discussing other type of catalyst for hydrogen peroxide decomposition such as by Essa et al, [8] and Widdis et al, [27] that used manganese oxides, and ruthenium oxides nanorods respectively. According to Widdis et al, [27] their experiment on the ruthenium oxides showed that the decomposition took place on the catalytic surfaces, but the magnitude of reactivity recorded is not as anticipated for the decomposition of 85% hydrogen peroxide. According to Gagne [28], Iron compounds were found to be among the most vigorous hydrogen peroxide decomposition out of all the catalysts investigated while iron salts is one of the highest performing catalysts especially in the hydrogen peroxide propellant.…”

Section: Silver Catalystmentioning

confidence: 99%

Porosity Effect of the Silver Catalyst in Hydrogen Peroxide Monopropellant Thruster

Shahrin

Othman

Mohd

et al. 2021

CFDL

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In monopropellant system, hydrogen peroxide is used with catalyst to create an exothermic reaction. Catalyst made of silver among the popular choice for this application. Since the catalyst used is in porous state, the effect of its porosity in the hydrogen peroxide monopropellant thruster performances is yet unknown. The porosity changes depending on factors including catalyst pact compaction pressure, bed dimension, and type of catalyst used. As researches on this topic is relatively small, the optimum porosity value is usually left out. The performance of the thruster indicated by the pressure drop across the catalyst bed. Porosity of the catalyst bed adds additional momentum sink to the momentum equation that contributes to the pressure gradient which lead to pressure loss inside thruster. The effect of porosity influences the performance and precision of the thruster. Study of the pressure drop by the catalyst bed requires a lengthy period and expensive experiments, however, numerical simulation by mean of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be an alternative. In this paper, 90 wt% hydrogen peroxide solution with silver catalyst is studied in order to investigate the influence of porosity to the performances of the thruster, and to find the optimum porosity of the thruster. Species transport model is applied in the single-phase reaction simulation using the EDM for turbulence-chemistry interaction. Through this study, the effect of porosity towards the thruster performances represented in term of pressure drop, exit velocity, bed temperature, and thrust, and porosity of 0.4 found to be as an optimal value.

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“…While it was a successful proof-of-concept, Hitt et al 3 identified several areas for future improvements including incomplete decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide, and system degradation owing to deterioration of the silver-coating during operation. Recent efforts by Widdis et al 4,5 have proposed the use of self-assembled ruthenium oxide nanorods, grown on the walls of the channel, which would replace the silver-coating and the associated deterioration issues. They report that this configuration does result in limited decomposition, but concerns with the ability of the hydrogen peroxide to completely wet on the surface composed of dense ruthenium oxide nanorods indicate that other methods of achieving catalysis should be investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced Laminar Mixing in Multifluid Droplets via Multiphase Flow in a Microchannel

McDevitt

Hitt

2013

43rd Fluid Dynamics Conference

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Laminar flow mixing remains an active area of research within the microfluidics community. Traditional mixing methods often rely upon turbulent flow, which is generally not present on the micro-scale and so alternative approaches must be sought. This work studies enhanced laminar mixing for use in a proposed monopropellant microthruster based upon homogeneous catalysis in a flow with Re < 10. The enhancement is realized through the introduction of an inert gas at a channel junction, which can lead to the formation of discrete liquid slugs. These slugs contain the monopropellant and the catalyst and have an internal recirculation that is found to enhance mixing. The focus of this study is on the numerical investigation of this process with the goal of minimizing the mixing length and characterizing the dependence of mixing on inlet conditions. The slug formation process is found to decrease the minimum mixing length by a factor of up to 7.2, with much of the benefit of the multiphase flow occurring shortly after slug formation. As minimizing the dimensions of the microthruster is a key design consideration, this reduction in mixing length demonstrates the value of the enhanced laminar mixing for the proposed micropropulsion application.

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Computational and Experimental Studies of Catalytic H2O2 Decomposition in Microscale Reactors

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

A study of 50% liquid H2O2 decomposition on a silver catalyst for CubeSat applications

A study of 50% liquid H2O2 decomposition on a silver catalyst for CubeSat applications

Porosity Effect of the Silver Catalyst in Hydrogen Peroxide Monopropellant Thruster

Enhanced Laminar Mixing in Multifluid Droplets via Multiphase Flow in a Microchannel

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