Ionic Liquid Decomposition and Ionization for Gas Phase Electric - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Ionic Liquid Decomposition and Ionization for Gas Phase Electric Propulsion

• Dr. Kristina Lemmer, Dr. Nicholas Taylor, Dr. Forrest Grady Kidd

Western Michigan University

• Project Goals:
• Establish advanced laser diagnostic

facility at WMU

• Study decomposition and ionization of

ionic liquid propellants

• Computationally determine reaction

pathways and most likely products for decomposition and ionization reactions

• Experimentally use laser diagnostics, mass

spectroscopy and optical emission spectroscopy to determine decomposition and ionization reaction products.

Plasma reactivity

• H2O+ is most common ion in HAN plasma
• Most stable complexes and higher energy reactions

defined

• HEH is relatively stable, but after ionization, much more

reactive, resulting in more decomposition

Computational Effort Experimental Effort

Deeper understanding of HAN/HEHN interactions

• Investigated connections between NH2OH+NOx and

NH2+HNOx

• Improved kinetics for both species
• Most favorable pathways to N2O formation developed

Improved safety - Better understanding of HAN/HA decomposition Plasma excitation of thermally decomposed HAN

• HAN introduced via passive thermal capillary system
• Resulting species directly injected into an RF argon plasma

Optical emission diagnostics of a HAN plasma

• Plasma emission collected via a fiber optic to a high resolution spectrometer
• Results complicated by thermal decomposition effects, transport effects,

matrix & plasma (quenching) effects

Breakthrough Discoveries

Transitions

• Gas Phase Electric Propulsion – Field Reversed Configuration

Thrusters (FRTs)

• Interest from NASA
• NEXT STEP program
• AFRL/AFOSR interest
• Currently funded AFOSR programs
• “High Fidelity Modeling of Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC)

Thrusters – AF future Interest in Electric Propulsion”

• “Study of Vacuum Facility Effects on Pulsed Electric Propulsion

System Testing”

• Low pressure decomposition reactions
• NASA GPIM program and other green monopropellant missions
• Could help with catalyst identification