Catalytic effect investigation of α-Fe2O3 and α-Fe2O3-CMS nanocomposites on the thermal behavior of NC/DEGDN mixture: DSC measurements and kinetic modeling

Abstract

In this work, the thermal behavior and kinetics of energetic systems containing α-Fe2O3 and iron oxide–carbon mesospheres (α-Fe2O3-CMS) with nitrocellulose (NC)/diethylene glycol dinitrate (DEGDN)-based composites have been investigated using differential scanning calorimetry DSC and four isoconversional kinetic methods, respectively. The obtained results indicate that NC/DEGDN show only one decomposition peak, corresponding to the decomposition of the nitrate esters. Furthermore, the introduction of α-Fe2O3 and α-Fe2O3-CMS have lowered the peak temperature by 3.1 °C and 4.7 °C, respectively. Besides, the activation energy of the thermal decomposition of NC/DEGDN was decreased by 11.9 kJ/mol and 27.97 kJ/mol, after the introduction of α-Fe2O3 NPs and α-Fe2O3 NPs supported on CMS. These results confirm the good catalytic effect of the added catalysts on the thermal decomposition of the NC/DEGDN mixtures. However, the best catalytic effect was provided by the α-Fe2O3-CMS. Furthermore, the three considered systems were found to decompose according to different integral models g(α).