Study Focuses on Finding Rocket Fuel Alternatives

Researchers at McGill University have recently published a paper in Science Advances on a cleaner, safer rocket fuel than what hypergolic fuels have currently use. The study on the new fuels uses a simple chemical 'trigger' to unlock energy from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which consist of clusters of metal ions and an organic molecule.

Current rocket fuels are hypergolic materials, highly energetic but toxic carcinogens made of hydrazine derivatives, composed of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms. In the presence of an oxidizer, like oxygen, the fuel will immediately ignite.

MOFs are important in gas separation, storage, and catalysis. The research worked with MOFs to determine their energetic abilities by fine-tuning variations of both organic and inorganic components. Co-senior author of the study, Tomislav Friscic states, "This is a new, cleaner approach to making highly combustible fuels, that are not only significantly safer than those currently in use, but they also respond or combust very quickly, which is an essential quality in rocket fuel."

While the study is still in the early states, the results open up the possibility of providing a newer, cleaner set of hypergolic fuels for the aerospace industry.

The research report may be found in Science Advances, "Hypergolic zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) as next-generation solid fuels: Unlocking the latent energetic behavior of ZIFs"