Development of a catalyst for highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide

Jean-Yves Lestrade (1) , Pierre Prévot (1) , Jérôme Messineo (1) , Jerôme Anthoine (1) , Santiago Casu (2) , Bastian Geiger (2)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Mauzac]
2 Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & CO KG

Hybrid propulsion technology suffers from low propulsive performances generally due to low combustion efficiency in regards to the other chemical propulsion systems. When hydrogen peroxide is used as oxidizer, one of the most promising ways to increase this efficiency combines a catalyst and a swirl injector in order to have an oxidizing gaseous stream and an improved mixing between the two propellants. A complementary solution to directly increase the propulsive performance consists of using hydrogen peroxide at higher concentration than the spatial grade (87.5%) which improves the theoretical specific impulse up to 12s for 98% H2 O2. This paper presents the development of a catalyst compatible with very high concentrated hydrogen peroxide (98%) and the firing tests performed with this catalyst coupled to a hybrid engine in order to highlight the increase in combustion efficiency.

Mots clés: HYBROD ROCKET ENGINE; SPATIAL GRADE HYDROGEN PEROXIDE; CATALYTIC DECOMPOSITION; SWIRL INJECTION; HIGH COMBUSTION EFFICIENCY

Mots clés: EFFICACITE HAUTE COMBUSTION; INJECTEUR TOURBILLONNAIRE; MOTEUR FUSEE HYBRIDE; PROPULSION SPATIALE; DECOMPOSITION CATALYTIQUE; PEROXIDE D'HYDROGENE

Domaines: Milieux fluides et réactifs; Catalyse

Jean-Yves Lestrade, Pierre Prévot, Jérôme Messineo, Jerôme Anthoine, Santiago Casu, et al.. Development of a catalyst for highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Space Propulsion 2016, May 2016, Rome, Italy. ⟨hal-01353568⟩