Low Temperature Catalyst for Reduced Toxicity Monopropellant

"The Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) has developed low toxicity, tertiary amine azides called CINCH (Competitive Impulse Non-Carcinogenic Hypergol) that are suitable replacements for hydrazines as hypergolic fuels and liquid gas generator fuels. Thecatalyst used for the state-of-the-art monopropellant hydrazine requires excessively high temperatures to decompose the CINCH fuel, which results in unnecessary operational costs. In the Phase I SBIR Program, a mechanistic theory to develop lowtemperature reaction pathways for CINCH fuels was developed and successfully demonstrated. This approach provided simple, qualitative guidelines for the selection of catalysts for the desired reaction. Consequently, METSS was able to synthesize andevaluate several catalytically reactive systems capable of oxidizing and decomposing the CINCH fuel at a much lower temperature than the current catalyst. The research data obtained demonstrate that METSS has developed three different classes of catalystsof potential relevance to the proposed application. The new catalysts provide improved activity, greater selectivity, and improved yields. METSS will further develop these concepts under an applied Phase II SBIR Program that will clearly establish astrong foundation for product commercialization efforts. Phase II work will emphasize catalyst optimization/selection to meet the low temperature requirement and generate reaction data from a prototyp