Preparation and properties of spherical super thermite for 3D printing of energetic materials

Abstract

3D printing technology is a new rapid prototyping technology that has attracted much attention since its inception. It is promising to apply 3D printing technology to energetic materials. However, the 3D printing of energetic materials requires high raw materials, and there is no suitable thermite powder as the printing raw materials at present. In this paper, Al@CuO energetic composites with single core spherical core-shell structure were prepared by spray drying method. The prepared powder was confirmed to have a single core spherical core-shell structure by SEM/EDS/XRD, and it was proved to have good fluidity by the fluidity test. High-speed photographic ignition tests show that the Al@CuO Micron spheres have excellent energy release performance and can be used as burning rate catalysts. In addition, this method has the advantages of simple operation, good process performance, mass preparation, and can be applied to the thermite system of most metal oxides (such as Bi2O3, Fe2O3).