Verification of a Novel Electrospray Thruster with Magnetic Ionic liquid Propellant

Abstract

A new concept of magnetic ionic liquid electrospray thruster(ILET) is proposed in this paper. The thruster uses a lower working voltage with the action of an applied magnetic field, and is named as low-voltage ionic liquid electrospray thruster(LV-ILET). A jet needle is used as the emitter and the Helmholtz coil is used to apply an external magnetic field to demonstrate the working principle of the LV-ILET. The experimental results show that the stable working voltage could be reduced to 87% of that in absence of an applied magnetic field. Under the same working voltage, the applied magnetic field can significantly increase the emission current of LV-ILET. Due to the linear relationship between the thrust and the emission current, LV-ILET can either reduce the working voltage or increase the thrust with the help of the applied magnetic field and the magnetization characteristics of the propellant.