Effect of catalysts on the combustion of nitroguanidine and ammonium nitrate-nitroguanidine mixtures

Abstract

1. The most effective catalysts of nitroguanidine combustion are vanadium pentoxide and lead chromate in the low-pressure region and copper chloride in the high-pressure region. 2. The increased burning rate in the presence of catalysts is associated with the greater degree of completion of the reactions which in the absence of a catalyst, proceed more slowly, and since the reactions that control the burning rate change with pressure, the same additive may be an effective catalyst in one pressure region and less effective in another. 3. Combined catalysts are much less effective than their individual components. 4. In the low-pressure region the burning rate of a stoichiometric mixture of ammonium nitrate and nitroguanidine is evidently determined by decomposition of the nitroguanidine, and in the high-pressure region by decomposition of the ammonium nitrate. The burning rate of this mixture is doubled by adding copper chloride at pressures up to 300 atm and potassium bichromate at higher pressures. 5. For both pure nitroguanidine and nitroguanidine mixed with ammonium nitrate in most cases saturation of the catalytic effect is not observed even at pressures of 1000 atm.