Sustainable Aviation Fuel

​​​​​​​As the energy landscape of our world continues to evolve, the use of sustainable aviation fuels has become a significant interest for the next age of aerospace propulsion. Work in our lab seeks to leverage the use of “green” monopropellants (i.e., propellants that include their own oxidizing agent) for their use in novel propulsion systems. Sustainable monopropellants with high specific impulse such as hydroxlammonium nitrate (HAN) present potentially advantageous alternatives to replace traditional fuels (e.g., hydrazine) which have posed significant issues in the aerospace community due to their high toxicity and high cost of development. We seek to understand the primary mechanisms of heat release and energy evolution in the catalytic decomposition and combustion of these fuels. Subsequent development of models describing these processes will allow for the intelligent design of advanced propulsion systems run on sustainable aviation fuels.