New liquid fuel is fire-resistant

US A team of engineers at the University of California Riverside has developed a liquid fuel that only ignites when an electric current runs through it, helping to limit the risk of fire.

The flammable nature of fuels makes fires a major risk for the industry. Chemical engineers at the University of California Riverside have developed a flame-retardant liquid fuel that reduces the risk of accidental fires during storage or transportation, Interesting Engineering reported on October 4. The research results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The new fuel can only ignite when an electric current is passed through it. "The fuel we normally use is not very safe. It vaporizes and can catch fire, and that fire is very difficult to put out. It would be much easier to control the flammability of the fuel and prevent it from burning by removing the voltage," said Yujie Wang, a chemical engineering graduate student at the University of California Riverside and co-author of the study.

The new fuel is made from an ionic solution, a liquid salt. “It’s similar to the salt we use to season our food, sodium chloride. The one we used for this project has a lower melting point than table salt, a lower vapor pressure, and is completely organic,” Wang said.

To develop the fuel, the team modified the formula of the ionic solution by using perchlorate instead of chlorine. They then tested whether the new solution would burn when exposed to the flame of a lighter.

As a result, the fuel doesn't ignite. "The temperature from a normal lighter is high enough that if it was meant to burn, it would burn," Wang explains. Normally, a fire starts when flammable fuel turns into gas in the presence of oxygen at high temperatures.

The team then evaluated the performance of the new fuel with a voltage test. In this case, it burned.

"When we turned off the current, the fire went away. We could repeat this process over and over again, applying voltage, seeing smoke rise, igniting the smoke, and then turning it off. We were excited to find a mechanism that we could start and stop very quickly," Wang said.

Another interesting aspect of this improved ionic solution is that it can be mixed with conventional fuels while still retaining its original properties. “But more research is needed to figure out how much of it can be mixed in and still retain its fire-retardant properties,” says Michael Zachariah, a co-author of the study.

In theory, ionic liquid fuels could be used in a variety of vehicles. However, the fuel is still in its early stages and more testing is needed before it can be commercially launched. Most importantly, tests involving a variety of engines are needed to test the new fuel’s adaptability and evaluate its overall performance.

Thu Thao (According to Interesting Engineering )

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