Effect of Phosphate Stabilizers in Hydrogen Peroxide Decomposition on Manganese-Based Catalysts

Adverse effects of phosphate ions used as a stabilizing agent in rocket-grade hydrogen peroxide on the decomposition catalyst were investigated. For a comparative study, MnO2/Al2O3 and MnO2+PbO/Al2O3 were selected as the catalyst to decompose 90 wt% hydrogen peroxide containing 1.24  mg/liter of phosphate ions. The reactivity of the catalysts measured by reactivity tests decreased by half in the hydrogen peroxide, including phosphate ions. Endurance of the catalyst was evaluated on a 50 N monopropellant thruster by measuring the chamber pressure. The degradation of the decomposition efficiency of the catalyst was evident after the initial 5 s, during which the lead-doped catalyst revealed better performance than the pure MnO2 catalyst. After 30 s of thruster operation, performance degradation was particularly severe with the lead-doped catalyst. The catalysts sampled after thruster operation were characterized by mass analysis, the Brunauer Emmet Teller model, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. A large q...

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