Design, fabrication and analysis of stagnation flow microreactors used to study hypergolic reactions.

A novel method to study the condensed phase reactions that occur during the ignition of hypergolic propellants (very fast liquid reactions) using microreactors is presented. Planar counterflow microreactors are used to isolate liquid-phase reactions and diffusion from secondary gas-phase chemical and transport processes that often occur concurrently during the overall ignition process. The counterflow microreactor has made it possible to achieve valuable insight into the preignition mechanisms of hypergolic propellants hitherto not possible using conventional drop or impinging jet tests.