Scientists invent breakthrough ‘safe’ liquid fuel that cannot start accidental fires

Innovative fuel requires electric current to ignite and does not easily combust with just a flame

Scientists have invented a breakthrough “safe” liquid fuel that they claim cannot start accidental fires during storage or transport.

Normally when a fuel catches fire, it is not the liquid itself that burns, but instead the volatile fuel molecules hovering above the liquid ignite on contact with oxygen and flame.

The innovative fuel required an electric current to ignite and did not easily combust with just a flame, the new research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society found.

“If you throw a match into a pool of gasoline on the ground, it’s the vapor of the gas that’s burning ... If you can control the vapor, you can control whether the fuel burns,” study co-author Prithwish Biswas from the University of California - Riverside explained.

In the new study, scientists modified the chemical formula of the fuel’s base – a type of ionic liquid – replacing the chlorine in it with the perchlorate.

When they used a cigarette lighter against the new liquid, they found that it did not burn.

“The temperature from a normal lighter is high enough, and if it was going to burn, it would have,” Yujie Wang, another author of the study, said.

But when scientists applied a voltage to the liquid and then followed it by a lighter flame, the fuel was found to ignite.

“Once we shut off the current, the flame was gone, and we were able to repeat that process over and over again – applying voltage, seeing smoke, lighting the smoke so it burned, then turning it off,” Dr Wang explained.

“We were excited to find a system we could start and stop very quickly,” he added.

Scientists say one major feature of the fuel is that it is safe from accidental, unintended fires.

“This approach presents a paradigm shift, offering the potential to make a ‘safe fuel,’” the study noted.

However, scientists said further research on its efficiency when used in different types of engines was needed before it could be commercialised.

While scientists said it could be used along with conventional fuel, they called for additional research to understand “what percentage can be mixed and still have it be not flammable”.

“This would definitely be more expensive than the way they currently manufacture fuels. These compounds are not normally produced in bulk, but if they were, the cost would go down,” Michael R Zachariah, another author of the study, said.