Amine-boranes: green hypergolic fuels with consistently low ignition delays

P Veeraraghavan Ramachandran; Ameya S Kulkarni; Mark A Pfeil; Jacob D Dennis; Jared D Willits; Stephen D Heister; Steven F Son; Timothée L Pourpoint

doi:10.1002/chem.201405224

Amine-boranes: green hypergolic fuels with consistently low ignition delays

Chemistry. 2014 Dec 15;20(51):16869-72. doi: 10.1002/chem.201405224. Epub 2014 Nov 3.

Authors

P Veeraraghavan Ramachandran¹, Ameya S Kulkarni, Mark A Pfeil, Jacob D Dennis, Jared D Willits, Stephen D Heister, Steven F Son, Timothée L Pourpoint

Affiliation

¹ Herbert C. Brown Center for Borane Research, Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (USA). chandran@purdue.edu.

PMID: 25367843
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201405224

Abstract

Complexation of amines with borane converts them to hypergols or decreases their ignition delays (IDs) multifold (with white fuming nitric acid as the oxidant). With consistently low IDs, amine-boranes represent a class of compounds that can be promising alternatives to toxic hydrazine and its derivatives as propellants. A structure-hypergolicity relationship study reveals the necessary features for the low ID.

Keywords: amine-borane; drop test; hypergol; ignition delay; propellants.