Green Propulsion Research at TNO the Netherlands

This paper describes the recent theoretical and experimental research by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) into green replacements for hydrazine, hydrazine derivatives and nitrogen tetroxide, as propellants for in-space propulsion. The goal of the study was to identify propellants that are capable of outperforming the current propellants for space propulsion and are significantly less hazardous for humans and the environment. Two types of propellants were investigated, being monopropellants and bipropellants. The first section of the paper discusses the propellant selection. Nitromethane was found to be the most promising monopropellant. As bipropellant, a combination of hydrogen peroxide (HP) and ethanol was selected, where the ethanol is rendered hypergolic with hydrogen peroxide. The second part of the paper describes the experimental verification of these propellants by means of engine testing. Initiation of the decomposition of nitromethane was found to be problematic, hypergolic ignition of the hydrogen peroxide and ethanol bipropellant however was successfully demonstrated.