Effect of pressures on decomposition reaction kinetics of double-base propellant catalyzed with cerium citrate

Abstract

Abstract The decomposition reaction kinetics of the double-base (DB) propellant (No. TG0701) composed of the mixed ester of triethyleneglycol dinitrate (TEGDN) and nitroglycerin (NG) and nitrocellulose (NC) with cerium(III) citrate (CIT-Ce) as a combustion catalyst was investigated by high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry (PDSC) under flowing nitrogen gas conditions. The results show that pressure (2 MPa) can decrease the peak temperature and increase the decomposition heat, and also can change the mechanism function of the exothermal decomposition reaction of the DB gun propellant under 0.1 MPa; CIT-Ce can decrease the apparent activation energy of the DB gun propellant by about 35 kJ mol−1 under low pressure, but it can not display the effect under high pressure; CIT-Ce can not change the decomposition reaction mechanism function under a pressure.