Why mixtures of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide are hypergolic?

Ke Yu Lai, Rongshun Zhu, Ming-Chang Lin*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

The reactions of N 2H 4 with N 2O 4 isomers have been investigated at the G2M(CC3)//B3LYP/6-311++G(3df,2p) level. The results show that the reactions of N 2H 4 with sym-N 2O 4 (D 2h), cis-ONONO 2 (C s), and NO 2 have to overcome 14.2, 10.6, and 7.6 kcal/mol barriers, respectively. However, N 2H 4 can react spontaneously with trans-ONONO 2 (C s) and cis-ONONO 2 (C 1) to produce HONO 2 + H 2NN(H)NO with the near gas-kinetic rate constant, 4 × 10 -10 cm 3 molecule -1 s -1 above 250 K. The H 2NN(H)NO thus formed can rapidly fragment to give reactive N 2H 3 radical with rate constant > 1 × 10 7 s -1 at 1000 K, which is fast enough to initiate the hypergolic chain reactions with NO 2 and N 2O 4.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)33-37
Number of pages5
JournalChemical Physics Letters
Volume537
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2012

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