Cost-Effective Nanoscale Ceramic Catalyst Coated Metallic Fuel Additive to Increase Thrust and Provide in situ Catalytic Combustion

Foster-Miller will demonstrate an innovative JP-10 catalyst initiated hybrid fuel. Ceramic oxide coated nanoparticle metal catalytic combustion is emerging as a viable technology for a variety of applications including jet and missile turbine engines, radiant panel heaters, and certain home appliances. An important reason to consider nanoparticle catalytic combustion is that it accelerates the fuel burn rate to maximize energy release in the turbine engine, thus producing a higher trust/weight along with a lower exhaust emission, particularly NOx. Also catalytic combustion will enable jets to fly at higher altitudes and increase their range. Our hybrid fuel will provide enough energy boost by more completely burning the JP-10 fuel, to increase a missile flight distance by more than 25 percent. The required metal is already manufactured, eliminating the need for process development. These proprietary processes will have attractive cost implications because of cost effective nanoparticle manufacturing process.. This process can produce manufacturing quantities of nanosized materials with tight control over particle size and surface morphology. The Phase I program will involve fabricating doped ceramic oxide coated metal nanoparticles, nanomaterials characterization including SEM, EDS, X-ray diffraction, mixing with JP-10 fuel to create a fuel hybrid and catalytic action energy release testing. (P-040169)