Novel High Energy Density Fuels Development

Increasing the energy density of liquid fuels can increase the range of current platforms and weapons without the need to redesign existing systems. However, newly developed high density hydrocarbon based fuels often have viscosities too high for use on weapons systems. An alternative solution is to add metallic particles to current fuels (JP-10) for an increase in energy density without undesirable changes to other fuel properties such as viscosity, flash point, and freezing point. In the Phase I program the addition of boron nanoparticles to JP-10 was successfully demonstrated to increase the volumetric energy density of the fuel by 10%. An innovative plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) coating was added to the boron nanoparticles to improve stability in JP-10 and prevent oxidation during storage. Additionally, a surfactant, AOT, was identified which further improves stability lowering the viscosity to within the requirements of current platforms. As part of the Phase II program the surface chemistry of the PECVD coating and surfactant concentration will be tuned to further improve long term stability, and a low temperature hydrogen plasma will be used to remove any oxide present on the boron nanoparticles prior to coating for increased energy density.