Characterization of thermochemical properties of Al nanoparticle and NiO nanowire composites

John Z Wen,John Persic,Ngoc Ha Nguyen,Anming Hu,Golnaz Bohlouli-Zanjani,Y Norman Zhou,Catalin F Petre,Sophie Ringuette

doi:10.1186/1556-276x-8-184

Abstract

Thermochemical properties and microstructures of the composite of Al nanoparticles and NiO nanowires were characterized. The nanowires were synthesized using a hydrothermal method and were mixed with these nanoparticles by sonication. Electron microscopic images of these composites showed dispersed NiO nanowires decorated with Al nanoparticles. Thermal analysis suggests the influence of NiO mass ratio was insignificant with regard to the onset temperature of the observed thermite reaction, although energy release values changed dramatically with varying NiO ratios. Reaction products from the fuel-rich composites were found to include elemental Al and Ni, Al2O3, and AlNi. The production of the AlNi phase, confirmed by an ab initio molecular dynamics simulation, was associated with the formation of some metallic liquid spheres from the thermite reaction.

Highlights

IntroductionMetastable intermolecular composites (MICs) are often composed of aluminum nanoparticles (the fuel is usually manufactured with a shell of alumina on each particle) and some oxidizer nanoparticles including CuO [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12], Fe2O3 [13,14,15], Bi2O3 [5,16], MoO3 [5,17,18], and WO3 [5,19,20]
The sonication process of 20 min helped produce the well-dispersed Al nanoparticles decorated on the NiO nanowires
The ratio of the NiO nanowires in the Metastable intermolecular composites (MICs) was found to have a less effect on the onset temperature

Summary

Introduction

Metastable intermolecular composites (MICs) are often composed of aluminum nanoparticles (the fuel is usually manufactured with a shell of alumina on each particle) and some oxidizer nanoparticles including CuO [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12], Fe2O3 [13,14,15], Bi2O3 [5,16], MoO3 [5,17,18], and WO3 [5,19,20] These MICs have drawn much attention recently in developing reliable and high-performance power generation systems due to their nanosized components which allow for the tuning of ignition temperature, reaction propagation rate, and volumetric energy density [12,17,21,22,23,24]. The challenge remains in identifying a suitable MIC candidate for providing an optimal energetic performance which matches with the properties of the solid propellants

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion