Rheological Characterization of Ethanolamine Gel Propellants

Ethanolamine is considered to be an environmentally friendly propellant system because it has low toxicity and is noncarcinogenic in nature. In this article, efforts are made to formulate and prepare ethanolamine gel systems, using pure agarose and hybrids of paired gelling agents (agarose + polyvinylpyrrolidine (PVP), agarose + SiO2, and PVP + SiO2), that exhibit a measurable yield stress, thixotropic behavior under shear rate ranges of 1–1,000 s−1 and a viscoelastic nature. To achieve these goals, multiple rheological experiments (including flow and dynamic studies) are performed. In this article, results are presented from experiments measuring the apparent viscosity, yield stress, thixotropy, dynamic strain, frequency sweep, and tan δ behaviors, as well as the effects of the test temperature, in the gel systems. The results show that the formulated ethanolamine gels are thixotropic in nature with yield stress between 30 and 60 Pa. The apparent viscosity of the gel decreases as the test temperature inc...