Ignition and Combustion Characterization of Nano-Al-AP and Nano-Al-CuO-AP Micro-sized Composites Produced by Electrospray Technique

Abstract

Metal powders such as aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs) have been found huge potential as reactive additives to highly increase energy density in various energetic systems such as propellants, explosives and pyrotechnics. However, it is suffering issues of agglomeration and post-combustion aggregates, which largely reduce the energy utilization efficiency and the energy release rate. One option to eliminate this disadvantage is to coat the nanoparticles with gas generator which can produce gas to prevent the sintering. This work use electrospray technique to assemble Al NPs and Al-CuO NPs into microparticles, with coating of gas generator-ammonium perchlorate (AP) to produce gas to prevent possible sintering, thus obtaining a highly reactive Al-based composites. The Al/CuO NPs composites are ignited in a confined cell to measure its combustion pressure history. The peak pressure and the pressurization rate of Al/CuO/AP is more than 3X higher and faster, compared to the physically mixed Al/CuO nanothermite. This work provides an ideal approach to prepare Al NPs based energetic materials such as solid propellant or solid fuel air explosives.