WirelessElectrochemically Driven Combustion of IonicLiquid Fuel

Abstract The flammability and combustion behavior of liquid fuels are primarily governed by volatility, often causing unintended ignition. Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are generally considered nonflammable due to negligible vapor pressure and superior thermal stability. These nonvolatile RTILs can be rendered electrochemically combustible enabling a safer fuel concept with on-demand flame extinction. This work introduces bipolar electrochemistry as a wireless strategy to enhance the kinetics of electrochemically combustible RTIL fuels. Under an applied electric field, polarization of the bipolar electrode drives simultaneous oxidation and reduction reactions without direct electrical wiring. The effects of BPE materials and characteristic dimensions are investigated using electrochemical measurements and compared against a no-BPE system. Carbon foam BPEs exhibit superior performance, achieving up to a 4-fold reactivity enhancement compared to the no-BPE configuration. Correspondingly, electrochemical combustion power generation enhances by a factor of ∼4.5. A developed model incorporating the specific operating conditions predicts a 2.3-fold enhancement arising from the additional reactive surface area under isothermal conditions. Under nonisothermal conditions, ionic Joule heating increases conductivity yielding a combined enhancement of up to 6.9-fold. These findings highlight bipolar electrochemistry as a controllable, hardware-efficient strategy in regulating the electrochemical combustion performance of ionic liquid fuels.