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Updated: May 1, 2026

Synthesis of Ionic Liquid Based Electrolytes, Assembly of Li-ion Batteries, and Measurements of Performance at High Temperature
Published on: December 20, 2016
Cyanoborohydride-based ionic liquids as green aerospace bipropellant fuels
Qinghua Zhang1, Ping Yin, Jiaheng Zhang
1Institute of Chemical Materials, China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), Mianyang, 621900 (P.R. China). wfqinghua@licp.cas.cn.
Abstract:
In propellant systems, the most common bipropellants are composed of two chemicals, a fuel (or reducer) and an oxidizer. Currently, the choices for propellant fuels rely mainly on hydrazine and its methylated derivatives, even though they are extremely toxic, highly volatile, sensitive to adiabatic compression (risk of detonation), and, therefore, difficult to handle. With this background, the search for alternative green propellant fuels has been an urgent goal of space science. In this study, a new family of cyanoborohydride-based ionic liquids (ILs) with properties and performances comparable to hydrazine derivatives were designed and synthesized. These new ILs as bipropellant fuels, have some unique advantages including negligible vapor pressure, ultra-short ignition delay (ID) time, and reduced synthetic and storage costs, thereby showing great application potential as environmentally friendly fuels in bipropellant formulations.
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