Performances of nano-Pt/Ceria catalysts in steam reforming, thermal cracking, and combustion of novel emulsified hydrocarbon fuels

Active cooling for hypersonic aircraft with endothermic hydrocarbon fuels (EHFs) represents an effective approach to address thermal management problems. The EHFs integrate the dual functions of thermal protection and propulsion. The design of a fuel system that can simultaneously enhance heat sink, inhibit coking and improve combustion efficiency has garnered widespread interest. Steam reforming (SR) of emulsified fuels has been proposed as a means to enhance thermal protection performance. Nevertheless, achieving SR technique still remains difficult especially at high flow rates of the fuel system. This work develops a novel quasi-homogeneous fuel system to integrate the RP-3 aviation kerosene with water and Pt/Ceria nano-catalysts. The catalysts are prepared via solvothermal synthesis and exhibit high reactivity in comparison with those prepared via impregnation calcination, which can be attributed to the stronger metal-support interaction, more abundant oxygen vacancies, and better oxidation-reduction properties. The novel fuel system demonstrates significant performance improvements over RP-3, and the enhancement in heat sink (from 2.97 to 3.93 MJ/kg, >30 %), the suppression in coking (from 15.82 to 1.81 mg/g, >80 %) and the reduction in ignition delay time (from 0.2568 to 0.1940 s, >20 %) can be achieved. It is concluded that the combination of steam reforming, thermal cracking and catalytic combustion of emulsified fuel is a promising path for the development of advanced EHFs.