Thermal decomposition characteristic and kinetics of DINA

Abstract

N-Nitrodihydroxyethyl dinitrate (DINA) is a useful energetic plasticizer in double-base propellant. To analyze the potential hazards of its thermal decomposition, the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to test the thermal behavior of DINA under non-isothermal and isothermal conditions. It is found from the non-isothermal DSC results, that the melting point of DINA is about 50 °C, the initial exothermic decomposition temperature (T onset) is between 177.46 and 189.60 °C with the heating rate 2, 4, 8 and 10 °C min−1, and its decomposition enthalpy (ΔH d) is about 3235.63 J g−1. Both the shapes of heat flow curves and activation energy curves, calculated by Friedman method, indicate the exothermic decomposition of DINA contains at least four reactions (P1–P4), which were separated into four curves by AKTS software according to the four peaks. The relatively constant E(α) of P1, P2, P3 and P4 verifies this four peaks are likely to be described by a single reaction model. The method proposed by ICTAC was used to determine the most suitable reaction function and kinetic parameters of DINA decomposition, the results show that P1 and P2 follow the Z–L–T model and the Avrami–Erofeev model, respectively, both of them are autocatalytic models, which is consistent with the isothermal DSC results. The reaction model of P3 cannot be obtained, while P4 corresponds to n-order reaction, f(α) = (1 − α)1.67.