Electrochemical Combustion Control

Despite moves toward electrification and solar driven renewables, reliance on fossil energy will continue for the foreseeable future. In addition, specialized applications will require enhanced safety protocols. This project will address the early stages of potential new strategies to employ “safe” high energy dense fuels by electrochemically activating fuels to become flammable on demand. This “switchable” behavior may also offer alternative means to electrochemically generate fuels on demand or on site. It may offer new methods for mixing traditional fuels with electrochemically active fuels to make traditional fuels safer. This project builds on a recent demonstration of the electrochemical switching of the flammability of a liquid fuel employing ionic liquids. The premise is that salts which have little volatility can either be reduced or oxidized to a neutral fragment which has both volatility and high enthalpy of combustion. This approach, if translated to industrial practice, offers the potential to make a ‘safe fuel’ or alternatively lay the foundation of a simple fuel metering scheme, which has not previously been realized in the domain of condensed phase fuels. The research will entail three tasks: 1) Obtain Structure-Function relationships by employing systematic change in molecular structure for both the anion and cation and evaluation of electrochemical properties and how they relate to combustion and electrochemical switchability; 2) Explore the potential of wireless electrochemistry using bipolar electrodes; and 3) Develop and characterize gelled fuel systems, which are inherently safer. The research conducted here will address the early stages of potential new strategies to employ “safe” high energy dense fuels and electrochemically generate fuels on demand or on site. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.