Propulsive and combustion behavior of hydrocarbon fuels containing boron nanoparticles in a liquid rocket combustor

Abstract

Nano-sized energetic particle as fuel additives is of great significance for liquid hydrocarbon fuels that will exhibit high-density and high-calorific value in high-speed propulsion systems. An experimental investigation has been conducted to determine the propulsive and combustion behavior of hydrocarbon fuels containing boron nanoparticles. In this study, nano-sized boron particles with average diameter of 20 nm are added into the basic fuel JP-10 and quadricyclane, respectively. They are then referred as slurry fuels and burned in the rocket combustor using pure oxygen as the oxidizer. With a wide range of excess oxidizer coefficients, three parameters characterizing the propulsion performance are employed to evaluate the effect of boron nanoparticles on hydrocarbon fuels. It is found that the boron-based slurry fuel showed superior density specific impulse. It is increased by 1.18% and 1.44% when the addition of boron particles with 10% mass fraction are added into the basic fuel JP-10 and quadricyclane, respectively. Combustion depositions of the boron-based slurry fuel located at different positions are then collected for deep analysis by means of the energy dispersive spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, and scanning electron microscope. Comprehensive microanalysis results demonstrate that boron particles first combine with the C-element in the hydrocarbon fuel to form the boron carbide with a reticular structure, and then the boron carbide oxidizes to form block-shaped boron oxide. However, the surface boron oxide hindered the further reaction of the internal boron carbide, which limits the energy release of the boron particles and ultimately leads to the unsatisfactory combustion efficiency of the slurry fuel.

Fluorescent Boron Oxide Nanodisks as Biocompatible Multi-messenger Sensors for Ultrasensitive Ni2+ Detection

“…High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM): The crystal structure of the sample was investigated by high-resolution (HR) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) performed on an FEI Titan 80–300 aberration-corrected microscope at a 300 keV electron energy. HRTEM images were evaluated by calculating the two-dimensional Fourier transform (FT), which yields information on the crystal structure of single nanoparticles.…”

“…Boron is a light chemical element able to form covalent-bonded molecular networks with a wide variety of structures . Bulk boron has been industrially employed in many different areas, such as high-density fuels, , protective coatings, semiconductors, , microelectronics, and refractory materials. , Furthermore, both elemental boron and its compounds have found interesting biomedical applications, especially in neutron capture therapy for cancer treatment in the currently under development field of nanomedicine. − When going down to the nanometric scale, boron-based nanomaterials appear in a wide variety of forms: nanoribbons, nanotubes, , nanowires, and nanofibers, − and the recently discovered borospherene , and borophene , that are B-based analogues of fullerene and graphene, respectively, as well as quasi-spherical nanoparticles (NPs), both crystalline and amorphous. − Additionally, several B-containing nanocompounds have attracted great interest from researchers, such as the well-known hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), rare-earth borides, Kondo topological insulators, , or recently synthesized boron oxide nanoparticles, which have been proposed as additives to enhance electrochemical, mechanical, and thermal properties in certain composite materials . Despite the large interest in exploring and understanding all of these B-based nanostructures, experimental investigations in boron nanoscience are still relatively limited as compared to theoretical studies (with the exception of h-BN) .…”

“…Boron is a light chemical element able to form covalentbonded molecular networks with a wide variety of structures. 1 Bulk boron has been industrially employed in many different areas, such as high-density fuels, 2,3 protective coatings, 4 semiconductors, 5,6 microelectronics, 7 and refractory materials. 8,9 Furthermore, both elemental boron and its compounds have found interesting biomedical applications, especially in neutron capture therapy for cancer treatment in the currently under development field of nanomedicine.…”