Fullerene-Based Ablative Coolant for Small, Chemical, Space Propulsion Systems

Fullerenes - the recently discovered closed cage forms of carbo - have unique and unprecedented pure carbon based thermal properties. Advanced materials based on fullerenes and fullerenes all by themselves are lightweight, long lived, environmentally benign and are materials that have very low thermal conductivity and which sublime at high temperatures. These properties make fullerenes and fullerene based advanced materials ideally suited for ablation based applications. This proposal will establish, as part of Phase I work, the proof- of-concept that fullerenes will ablatively cool combustion chambers and nozzles. The effort envisioned is to first deposit fullerene films of varying thickness onto an experimental sized combustion chamber and nozzle. Next, the surface will be exposed to high temperature flame environment and the temperature of the combustion chamber wall will be monitored. The Phase II work will focus on optimizing the performance of fullerene films as ablative coolants.