Burning What We Grow: The Combustion Chemistry of Bio-Derived Rocket Propellants and a Research Path from Nigerian Feedstocks

Rockets burn chemicals that can, in principle, be made from plants and waste: methane from biogas, ethanol from cassava, and paraffin from vegetable oils. This proposal asks what combustion chemistry says about those bio-derived fuels as rocket propellants. Using open-source Cantera equilibrium and kinetics calculations, I compare liquid oxygen with methane, propane, ethanol, n-dodecane and hydrogen. The ideal sea-level specific impulse is 310 s for methane, 302 s for the kerosene surrogate and 290 s for ethanol, and the ethanol-water blend used in the V-2 era gives 279 s. Ignition delay at 1200 K and 20 atm ranges from 2.05 ms for methane to 0.06 ms for n-dodecane. Leftover carbon dioxide in poorly cleaned bio-methane costs about 1 s of impulse per 2% by mole. More importantly, it freezes in liquid methane. The proposal sets out a computational and shock-tube programme to test fuels made from Nigerian feedstocks.