A kinetic investigation on the thermal decomposition of propellants catalyzed by rGO MFe2O4 (M = Cu, Co, Ni, Zn)‎ nanohybrids

Abstract EN

Reduced graphene oxide/metal ferrite (rGO/MFe2O4, M = Cu, Co, Ni) nanohybrids are successfully prepared through a simple, one-step hydrothermal method.

The rGO/MFe2O4 hybrids are characterized by XRD, TEM.

The rGO/MFe2O4 nanohybrids demonstrate amazing catalytic activity on thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP) based propellants.

DSC results indicate that the high-temperature decomposition (HTD) temperature of propellants added with rGO/MFe2O4 nanohybrids (3 wt%), could decrease from 325.9 °C to 259.9 °C, 268.8 °C, 271.9 °C, 306.9 °C, respectively.

The HTD activation energy on a conversion degree (α) range from 0.05 to 0.95 of propellant samples were investigated by two model-free methods Flynne–Walle–Ozawa (FWO) and Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS).

The results showed that both methods had similar values of Ea, and they match well with each other.

A strong dependence of Ea on α revealed a complex decomposition process.

The model-fitting analysis suggested the HTD process of propellant samples with or without catalysts both followed Mampel (First order) reaction model.