2013-a-02

Development of a 1 lbf Hydrogen Peroxide Monopropellant Thruster Constructed

by Using Composite Catalyst Packing
Hung-Wei Hsu1), Wei-Kang Chen2), Jian-An Chen1), Gung-Bang Chen3) and Yei-Chin Chao2)
1)

Aerospace Science and Technology Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
2)
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
3)
Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

For increasing global environmental and safety concerns, the concept of green, environment-friendly and economical propulsion
technology is becoming one of the most important topics in modern space propulsion development. Hydrogen peroxide recently re-attract
intensive attention and considered as a green propellant due to its outstanding features of being non-toxic to human and environment,
relatively safe to store and easy to produce. However, hydrogen peroxide monopropellant thruster suffers from the problem of catalyst
durability which significantly affects the thruster performance and lifespan. In the study, silver is selected as the active catalyst for
hydrogen peroxide decomposition and it is alternately packing with support materials. By hierarchical deployment of particle size of
support materials, the active area of the catalyst bed can be adjusted and the structural strength of the catalyst bed is enhanced. This
composite catalyst bed configuration is used in the development of a 1lbf-level hydrogen peroxide monopropellant thruster with a shower
head injector. The results of ground and vacuum tests demonstrate that the current catalyst bed design significantly improve the thruster
performance, especially in low-temperature start. The measured static thrust under atmosphere condition is about 0.56 lbf (Isp ~105 s,
with a mass flow rate of 2.44g/s of H2O2) and it is about 0.92 lbf ( Isp = ~ 157 s) under 10-4 torr vacuum condition for repeated and long
duration tests. This result confirms the reliability of the composite catalyst configuration. In addition, the 1lbf hydrogen peroxide thruster
with composite catalyst configuration is constructed as a propulsion system onboard a Sounding Rocket as the payload to verify the key
techniques and the high altitude performance of the thruster system. The Sounding Rocket will be launched in May, 2013.

Keywords: Hydrogen Peroxide, Monopropellant, Catalyst, Silver, Composite Catalyst

1.

Introduction

decomposition of pure H2O2 can heat the product gases to

1267K4). When the concentration goes below 64 wt%, the heat
release by H2O2 decomposition is not enough to evaporate all
water in the product of the H2O2. The adiabatic temperature of
H2O2 decomposition with the concentration above 64 wt%
increases linearly with concentration. In general, H2O2 with
concentration above 85 wt% is defined as the propellant for its
thrust performance.
HTP can be decomposed by various of catalysts, such as
silver2,5,6,7), permanganates8), manganese oxides (MnO2 and
Mn2O3), platinum, ruthenium dioxide, and lead oxide9). The
activity of these catalysts for hydrogen peroxide
decomposition has been classified by Laurence Pirault-Roy10).
In his research, it was found that silver has the best activity for
HTP decomposition. However, silver, as active catalyst for
HTP decomposition in monopropellant thrusters, suffers from
its inherent low melting point to survive from decomposition
processes of H2O2 over 92 wt%. Silver screens are commonly
used in the catalyst bed design for high concentration H 2O2.
However, severe sintering can be found in catalyst bed of
silver screen when used in high concentration hydrogen
peroxide or HTP environment. This phenomenon not only
affects the decomposition rate in the catalyst bed but also
reduces the chamber pressure of the monopropellant thruster.
In this study, a new and novel method for silver catalyst
packing for monopropellant thrusters is proposed, developed,
tested and will be demonstrated onboard a Sounding Rocket as
a payload to verify the key techniques and its high altitude
performance.

Reactive control system (RCS), that uses chemical reaction

to achieve the purpose of attitude control and orbit
maintenance/transfer of a spacecraft, is one of the most
important sub-systems onboard a spacecraft that may
determine the success of the mission and the life-span of a
spacecraft. Monopropellant propulsion systems are most
attractive reactive control systems due to their simplicity,
which translates into cost reduction and less complexity
compared with bipropellant systems. High test peroxide (HTP)
or high concentration hydrogen peroxide has a long history in
aerospace propulsion. Research on hydrogen peroxide
propulsion can be dated back to 1930s in Germany for
example by Walter1) and much more researches on hydrogen
peroxide thrusters / rockets were performed by NASA in the
1960s2,3). In recent years hydrogen peroxide, being
re-considered as a green propellant, has become more
attractive as a viable alternative to hydrazine monopropellant
due to its high density, non-toxicity, environment-friendliness,
and ease of handling and storage.
As a monopropellant, it usually takes catalysts to
decompose hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and steam with
high temperature, according to the reaction :
2H2O2(l)2H2O(g)+O2(g)+Heat

(1)

It can release a large amount of heat and then translate thermal

energy into kinetic energy by nozzle expansion. Adiabatic

2.

Catalyst Bed

Figure 3 shows the main components and assembly of the

thruster. The main body of the HTP thruster is made of
SS316stainless steel. The thruster includes injector, catalyst
reaction chamber and nozzle. There are two major design
considerations factors for the injector. One is for proper
distribution of HTP for smooth HTP decomposition, and the
other is to stabilize the pressure oscillation, if occurs by
providing sufficient pressure impedance. For improving the
pressure impedance, an injector plate and plenum assembly is
used. This injector plate is of shower-head type, which is 17
mm in diameter, 1 mm thickness and 28 holes with 0.4 mm in
diameter each. This injector plate design can uniformly
distribute the HTP in the catalyst bed during tests. For the
catalyst reaction chamber, the chamber diameter is 15 mm and
26mm in length including the injector assembly, catalyst bed,
distributing plate and spring. In the catalyst bed, there are
stainless steel meshes at upstream and downstream locations
to separate from the injector and distributing plate. It is also
used to hold the catalyst in position in the reaction chamber.
Downstream of the distributing plate, heat-treated Inconel 718
spring is used to press the catalyst bed in position and to absorb
pressure oscillation in the chamber. On the end of the chamber,
pressure transducer and thermocouple are inserted for
acquiring the chamber data. The nozzle is designed for ground
and vacuum performance tests. In addition, there is a orfice sat
between the thruster control valve and the thruster for
restricting the fuel mass flow rate. This plate is 6.3 mm in
diameter, 2 mm in thickness, with a central orifice of 0.3 mm
in diameter made of aluminum alloy (6061-T6).
3D numerical simulation using Fluent commercial code
with turbulence model is also performed to evaluate the design
parameters. Unconstructed mesh grids are used in the
simulation. Variable inlet pressures at the computational
domain, i.e., at the exit of the thruster valve are tested, and the
results indicate that it required 300 psi at the exit of the
thruster valve to reach the required mass flow rate of 2.65
g/sec. The simulation results agree with to the theoretically
estimated values of the design. Figure 4 shows the numerical
simulation results of the velocity profile in the injector.

The proposed packing of the silver catalyst bed is

conceptually shown in Figure 1. The silver flickers are subject
to effectively decompose HTP due to its highly active reaction
with hydrogen peroxide, and ceramic materials are used to
separate silver flakes and support flow channels for HTP. In
addition, ceramic materials are highly heat resistant so that it
can sustain during the decomposition process.
The current design of 1 lbf HTP thruster is based on the
previous experiment of 1N HTP thruster using scaling
principle. In the previous 1N thruster experiment, the mass
ratio of silver flakes and ceramic materials was 1, which could
completely decompose the HTP in the 10mm catalyst bed of a
total weight of 1 g for the mass flow rate of 0.6g/s HTP. Based
on this composition condition, although the HTP can be
decomposed, the pressure build-up is slow during cold start.
Raising the amount of active catalyst materials or increasing
the contact area of the active catalyst materials can overcome
the pressure build-up problem, but that would face the
challenge of sintering. The ignition delay of the thruster
chamber pressure rise can be significantly reduced by
increasing the mass of silver flake, but that would lead to
thruster instability due to catalyst sintering. The mass ratio of
the silver flake catalyst relative to ceramic materials is an
important trade-off factor for pressure build-up and catalyst
sintering. As mentioned the references11), when mass ratio is
below 0.33, silver catalyst would not sinter, but reaction
would be very slow for cold start. The previous experiments
show that silver flakes would sinter when the mass ratio is
over 1, and when the mass ratio sets between 0.5 and 1, with
probability the silver catalyst would sinter depending on the
HTP flow rate and operation duration. By past successful
experiment, taking 0.5 for mass ratio and utilizing pulse mode
to preheat the catalyst bed can effectively enhance the
performance and avoid sintering. Figure 2 shows the sintering
and the improving catalyst after experiments.
3.

The Thruster and Payload Design

3.2. Configuration for sounding rocket flight tests

For further tests of the high-altitude performance of the
thruster, a sounding rocket flight mission is planned for the
HTP monopropellant thruster system as a propulsion payload.
Being limited by the total weight of the payload for this
mission, all the mechanism and major components in this
system must be simplified. This system employs nitrogen (N2)
as pressurant to push the HTP into the thruster to decompose
to generate thrust.
This monopropellant thruster system for flight tests is
composed with two major parts. One is propellant feeding
subsystem and the other is the thruster subsystem. In this
section we will focus only on the feeding subsystem and
related components. The feeding subsystem is used to steadily
provide the propellant to the thruster. A piston type of
propellant tank is designed to ensure steady and smooth
operation of propellant supply in low gravity and vacuum
conditions, the tank can accommodate a volume of 437.5 c.c.

3.1. Design and analysis of the thruster

The study is based on the results of the lab-developed
composite catalyst bed and applied to HTP monopropellant
thruster design. The thrust design criterion for the thruster
under vacuum is set at 1 lbf with a chamber pressure of 200
psi. The concentration of HTP is 95 wt% or lower. The fuel
mass flow rate, throat area and the exit area in the expansion
section can then be analyzed during the design of the thruster.
Some assumptions are made for easily estimating the design
parameters and performance, such as steady state, isentropic
flow between catalyst bed and outlet, ideal gases and all
products in gas phase, neglecting friction and boundary effects
before throat, exhaust gases leaving the nozzle in axial
direction, and in chemical equilibrium. According to those
assumptions and conditions, the mass flow rate is estimated to
be 2.68 g/s, the throat diameter be 1.5 mm, and the expansion
angle and area ratio be 15 degree and 44:1, respectively.

with the pressure of 500 psi. For weight restriction of the

payload and the stability of propellant supply, a lightweight
and high-pressure proof vessel with a regulator is used. The
pressure vessel, made of SS304L by Swagelok, can
accommodate 300 c.c. N2 pressurant and can sustain 1800 psi
in pressure. A regulator by Tescom Company is used for
adjusting the operating pressure. It is qualified for pressure
proof up to 6000 psi. An isolation valve (latch valve) made of
SS316 is used for operational during launch process. Utilizing
a filter in the pipeline to avoid dust or impurities entrained by
the flow is deemed necessary. In this study we choose the 30
micrometer filter made of SS316 by Swagelok. The pressure
drop across the filter is less than 10 psi. Two quick-connect
work valves made of SS316 by Swagelok are used for filling
N2 pressurant and HTP from both ends of the propellant tank.
The response time is important for the RCS thruster control
valve (solenoid valve). In this system, the response time for
the thruster valve is less than 5 micro-seconds and the internal
and external leakage rate is very low.
Figure 5. shows the schematic diagram of the current HTP
monopropellant thruster system for flight tests. Figure 6 is the
picture of the thruster system for flight tests.
4.

imply that the thruster reaches the design goal. Reliability of

repeated tests is also performed for 5 times, and the average
results for each test are shown in Fig. 9. Since it is difficult to
set identical propellant tank pressure for each test, the
upstream HTP pressure is seen to vary accordingly on each
test. The mass flow rate of HTP varies between 2.3~2.8 g/s.
The 5 tests show that the chamber pressure is between
190~200 psi, pressure oscillation is less than 10%, static thrust
is about 0.55~0.63 lbf and Isp is 95~108 s at atmospheric
condition. After repeated tests for almost 15 min and over
2250 c.c. of HTP consumed, the catalyst is still in good
condition and the thruster performance agrees with
expectation.
4.2. Flight mission requirements test
To accommodate the test sequence of the flight mission of
the Sounding Rocket experiment, the performance tests of the
thruster under atmospheric and vacuum conditions before
launch are also performed. Figure 10. shows the scheduled
RCS propulsion system test sequence of the sounding rocket
experiment after launch.
Figure 11. shows the results of the test according to the
flight test sequence under atmospheric condition. The test
results for the chamber pressure is 206 psi, static thrust is
0.602 lbf and Isp is 103 s at atmospheric condition.
Figure 12. shows the chamber pressure of the flight test
sequence under vacuum condition. The vacuum test is
performed in in the vacuum chamber of 10-4 torr. Chamber
pressure of 206 psi, vacuum static thrust of 0.92 lbf and Isp of
157 s in vacuum condition are achieved. The hot fire tests
before launch show that the overall performance of the
thruster satisfies mission requirements.

Performance Tests

4.1. Thrust test

The propellant flow rate must be calibrated by adjusting the
propellant tank pressure before the test. It is estimated that in
ideal conditions when the upstream HTP pressure in the
pipeline reaches 245 psi, the chamber pressure can achieve the
design goal of 200 psi with a static thrust of 0.72 lbf at
atmospheric condition. In reality, one has to consider pressure
loss of the pipeline, connecting valves and filters. Also during
the tests, the propellant tank pressure, upstream HTP liquid
pressure, chamber pressure, chamber temperature and thrust
are monitored simultaneously. The test results are shown in
Fig. 7. The results show that when propellant tank pressure is
set at 250 psi, the upstream HTP pressure is 225 psi and the
chamber pressure reaches 198 psi with the static thrust of
0.595 lbf at atmospheric condition. The thruster chamber
pressure and thrust reaches the design criteria.
In Fig. 7 two firing tests are shown, the first one on the left
hand side is the cold start test, and the second one on the right
side is the hot start test. Under the cold start condition, the
ignition delay time is longer than expect and the system takes
about 2 s to reach the final steady thrust performance with an
Isp value of 104 s at atmospheric condition. In comparison,
for the hot start the ignition delay time is less than 150 ms,
pressure rise is quick, the chamber pressure oscillation is less
than 5%, and the Isp is 107 s at atmospheric condition.
Chamber preheating can effectively improve overall
performance and stability of the thruster. Preheat can be
achieved by continuously firing 5 times of 0.1 Hz pulses
before the test. The results are shown in Fig. 8.
As shown in Fig. 8, with 5 preheating pulses, the ignition
delay time is reduced to 130 ms, the chamber pressure is 192
psi, pressure oscillation is less than 5%, static thrust is 0.564
lbf and Isp is 105 s at atmospheric condition. All the values

5.

Conclusion

Development of a 1 lbf HTP Monopropellant system to be

used onboard the Sounding Rocket for high-altitude flight
tests is conducted in this research. The proposed new and
novel concept of composite silver catalyst bed packing for
hydrogen peroxide monopropellant thruster is the key
technique. By repeated tests, the results confirm the catalyst
bed and thruster design and better and stable thruster
performance is achieved. Through ground and vacuum tests,
the measured static thrust under atmospheric condition is
about 0.56 lbf corresponding to an Isp of 105 s and the mass
flow rate of 2.44g/s H2O2 and it is about 0.92 lbf and Isp of ~
157 s under 10-4 torr vacuum condition. The results meet the
performance requirements and objectives of the mission. The
Sounding Rocket will be launched in May of 2013.
Acknowledgments
This research would like to acknowledge the financial
support of Chung-Shan Institution of Science and Technology,
Taiwan, ROC, through projects, 96-NSPO(B)-SE-FA09-01,
and National Space Organization, Taiwan, ROC, through
projects, NSPO-S-099048.

References
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Catalyst Beds for 98-Percent-Concentration Hydrogen Peroxide,
NASA TN D-1808, Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia.
1963.
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Buildup And Decay Time For A 90 Percent Hydrogen Peroxide
Control Rocket, NASA TN D-516, 1960.
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100mN HTP Monopropellant Microthruster, Masters degree thesis,
National Cheng Kung University, 2006.
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paper
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Fig. 2. The sintering (before) and the improving catalyst after

experiments.

Connect to
Pressure Transducer
Distributing Plate Spring

Nozzle

Connect to
Thermocouple

Injector & Inject Plate

& Chamber
Thruster

Fig. 3.

The diagram of thruster components and assemblies.

Figures

Fig. 4.
Fig. 1.
HTP.

The concept of composite silver catalyst bed with interaction of

Numerical simulation results of velocity profile in the injector.

Fig. 5. The schematic diagram of the HTP monopropellant system for

flight tests.

Fig. 8.

Fig. 6.

The diagram of the performance test with 5 preheat pulses.

The picture of the HTP monopropellant system for flight tests.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 7. The result of thruster performance test at a cold start and hot start.
The propellant tank pressure set 250 psi and the chamber pressure at 198
psi.

The result of thruster performance test for five tests.

Fig. 10. The test sequence of the thruster onboard the Sounding Rocket
for flight test

Fig. 11. Hot fire test according to flight test sequence in atmospheric
condition.

Fig. 12. The result of final hot fire test in vacuum chamber before
launching.