Most satellites stationed in space use catalytic propulsion systems for attitude control and orbit adjustment. Hydrazine is consumed extensively as liquid monopropellant, in the thrusters. Catalytic reactor is the most important section in the catalytic thruster. Ammonia and nitrogen gases are produced as a result of complete catalytic decomposition of hydrazine in the reactor, causing an increase in temperature and a rise in specific impulse. Ammonia is subsequently decomposed, leading to nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Decomposition of ammonia leads to a decrease in temperature, molecular weight and specific impulse. The latter phenomenon is unavoidable. The effect of ammonia decomposition on the reactor temperature, molecular weight of gaseous products and conclusively on specific impulse was studied in this article. At adiabatic state, thermodynamic analysis revealed that the maximum and minimum temperatures were 1655 K and 773 K, respectively. The highest molecular weight was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and the lowest when ammonia conversion was 100%. The maximum specific impulse (305.4 S) was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and completely conversion of ammonia, the minimum specific impulse (about 213.7 s) was obtained. For specific impulse, the result of thermodynamic calculation in this work was validated by the empirical results.

Recently, transition metal oxides, which exhibit favorable catalytic abilities, have also been investigated as a material for the detection of hydrazine (N2H4). It has been reported that mixed metal oxides usually offer a higher electrochemical activity than binary oxides. In this work, a TiO2–Fe2O3 coupled system is presented as an enhanced material with major applications in electrochemical detectors. The electrochemical behavior of glassy carbon electrodes modified with TiO2–Fe2O3 in the absence and presence of hydrazine was evaluated via cyclic voltammetry (CV). Experimental results also suggest that the formation of the TiO2– Fe2O3 coupled system enhances electrochemical catalytic performance in N2H4 detection. The modification TiO2 + 2 mol% Fe2O3 provides good analytical performance of detection (0.13 mM) and quantification limits (0.39 mM). The presented coupled system provides the premise for a suitable material for a stable and sensitive N2H4 sensor.