Imagine an engine that can blast through the skies and then continue its journey underwater. Sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, right? Well, researchers in China have made it a reality with the world's first boron ramjet engine that works both in the air and underwater. This isn't your ordinary engine; it's designed to give missiles and drones the ability to fly at incredible speeds and then dive into the ocean to hit targets like aircraft carriers.

The secret behind this engine lies in the use of boron. Boron is a super-energetic element that burns intensely when it meets oxygen. This is why boron is already used in high-speed scramjet engines for hypersonic missiles. The challenge was getting it to work underwater. The team led by Professor Huang Liya at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha faced this challenge head-on. They found a way to give boron a "second chance" to keep burning by fine-tuning the water vapor and other metals in the combustion chamber. The result was an engine with near 90% combustion efficiency in submarine mode.

During ground tests, the boron ramjet produced a dazzling yellow exhaust as it sped through the air at more than three times the speed of sound. The engine showed stable combustion throughout, achieving a specific impulse of over 4, 700 Newton-seconds per kilogram. That's way better than SpaceX's latest Raptor rocket engine.

This innovation could transform the future of warfare. Stealthy drones and missiles could fly hundreds of miles through the air at hypersonic speeds, then take a dive into the ocean to attack heavily defended targets. Current military defenses might not be ready for such "cross-medium" weapons.

The team isn't stopping here. They plan to increase the boron content in the fuel mixture to pack even more energy and refine the combustion process further.

A New Twist in Missile Technology: China's Hybrid Boron Ramjet

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