26.06.2016
A Renaissance: Furfural for Rocket Fuel
Furaline, the 1950s rocket fuel that was also used to booster rockets of the first interceptor jets

Eco-friendly and affordable rocketfuel blends to replace currently used toxic fuels.

Indian researchers [1] investigated furfuryl alcohol (“FA”, a furfural derivative) blends with ionic liquids (“ILs”) as a basis for an eco-friendly rocket fuel. ILs are a suitable alternative to replace toxic rocket fuels like hydrazine, because they “fulfill most of the desirable properties such as negligible vapor pressure, low ignition delay, high energy density, low toxicity, stability over wide temperature range and it is also hydrolytically stable”. The researchers also report enhancements of the hypergolic fuel properties by the “addition of nanomaterial.”

We have previously reported on use of FA in hypergolic propellants like Furaline, the 1950s rocket fuel that was also used to booster rockets of the first interceptor jets or Fantol, the hypergolic starter fuel, which was already used for the German Enzian and Schmetterling missiles[2] towards the end of the 2nd World War.

Downloads

only for our client users (click here):

{phocadownload view=file|id=75}

{phocadownload view=file|id=76}

Reference

[1] Energy and Environmental Laboratory, Department of Applied Chemistry, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DU), Pune, 411025, India.DOI: 10.1002/slct.201600358

Choose a Topic

Join Our Newsletter

Articles and Pieces of Information

Subscribe for More

Get NEW Articles as and when we publish them

Read More

Latest Articles

Our site has moved to a new platform. It is functional, but expect the odd 'hiccup' (e.g. there are over 300 links and references that we are busy editing). Please continue to use it and/or submit your details and we'll notify you once all is 100% up and running.

Click here to access our old site.

We have received your request. Thank you.