Thruster propellants
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
InventorsKamran B. Ghiassi, Levi Michael Joseph Moore, Michael R. Natisin, Kevin T. Greeson
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Abstract
The present invention relates to thruster propellants, processes of making thruster propellants and space vehicles comprising thrusters that employ such propellants. The disclosed thruster propellants are advantageous because do not readily uptake water and are conductive. Furthermore, when compared to previous thruster propellants they have a higher mass, a higher density and/or a lower surface tension. Thus, when used in a thruster, such propellants can generate equal or higher thrust than previous thruster propellants.
Claims12
A thruster propellant comprising a plurality of cations and an anions and having an overall net zero charge, said cation comprising one or more heads, and one or more hydrophobic fluorinated tails that comprise one or more sulfur atoms, said sulfur atoms being separated from said fluorination and said head group by at least one carbon, said one or more tails being covalently bound to said one or more heads, each of said one or more heads being independently selected from the group consisting of an imidazolium, an imidazolinium, a phosphonium, an ammonium, a sulfonium, a pyridinium, a pyrrolidinium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.