Why mixtures of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide are hypergolic?

Ke Yu Lai; Rongshun Zhu; Ming-Chang Lin

doi:10.1016/j.cplett.2012.04.015

Why mixtures of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide are hypergolic?

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

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Applied Chemistry

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

35 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 language	English
Pages (from-to)	33-37
Number of pages	5
Journal	Chemical Physics Letters
Volume	537
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cplett.2012.04.015
State	Published - 1 Jun 2012

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10.1016/j.cplett.2012.04.015

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@article{0a34367ad6974ef1ba36b7200c47fd19,

title = "Why mixtures of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide are hypergolic?",

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.",

author = "Lai, \{Ke Yu\} and Rongshun Zhu and Ming-Chang Lin",

year = "2012",

month = jun,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.cplett.2012.04.015",

language = "English",

volume = "537",

pages = "33--37",

journal = "Chemical Physics Letters",