Researchers will unleash a green revolution in space with new rocket fuel

Can rocket fuel become green? US researchers have revealed a new concept of fuel that is significantly cleaner and safer than the one we have been using for decades.

The technology behind the launch of spacecraft and human beings out of the Earth's orbit has remained virtually unchanged for decades, and the same goes for rocket fuel .

Although it is currently the best way to meet the gravity challenge, rocket fuel remains a highly polluting substance, as Ian Whittaker, a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, said last year.

However, new research published for Science Advances A team from McGill University in the United States has shown that it is possible to create a new type of rocket fuel, much cleaner and safer than traditional hypergolic fuels, while producing the same amount of thrust.

This new fuel uses simple chemical "triggers" to release the porous solid energy known as "Organometallic Structures" (MOFs), recently observed during the major breakthrough of the hybrid "super plant".

In hypergolic fuels, the energy is released in huge amounts when the fuel comes in contact with an oxidizer. These fuels use hydrazine, a highly toxic and dangerously unstable chemical compound composed of a combination of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms. In addition, hydrazine fuels are considered so carcinogenic that the crew assigned to work with them must wear the most dangerous protective suits possible.

According to the McGill University team, over a year, space launches release more than 12,000 tonnes of hydrazine into the Earth's atmosphere. MOFs, however, do not require hydrazine, which makes this new solution more viable, as space travel will only increase in the coming decades.

"Although we are still at the beginning of the lab work with these materials, these results open up the possibility of developing a class of new clean and highly adjustable hypergolic fuels for the aerospace industry," said the first author of the 39, study, Hatem. Titi.