Development of energetic additives for propellants in China

Binder Materials for Green Propellants

“…Several energetic plasticisers, such as nitratoethyl nitramines (NENAs) [115,[125][126][127][128], nitrate esters (e.g. nitroglycerine, butanetriol trinitrate (BTTN) and trimethylolethane trinitrate (TMETN)) [129], azido compounds [129][130][131], bis(2,2-dinitropropyl)acetal/bis(2,2-dinitropropyl)formal (BDNPA/ F) [115,127,128,132], nitroaromatic compounds (e.g. 2,4-/2,6-dinitroethylbenzene/2,4,6-trinitroethylbenzene) [115,127,128], nitrato and azido oligomers (GLYN, NIMMO and GAP oligomers) [133][134][135][136][137][138][139], have been developed worldwide for use in solid propellants and plastic bonded explosives.…”

Thionyl Nitrate as Nitrating Agent for the Synthesis of 2‐[Butyl(nitro)amino]ethyl Nitrate (n‐BuNENA)

“…The use of energetic additives, mainly binders and plasticizers containingn itro, nitrato,a nd fluorodinitro groups has been considered as ap ractical way to improvet he performance of solid propellants. The search for the promising high-energy materials during the last two decade has led to the discovery of ah igh number of energetic oxidizers, fuels and explosives for their possible use as energetic ingredientsinpropellants/explosives formulations [1][2][3].Polymeric materials can be added to secondarye xplosives to produce polymer bonded explosives (PBXs). The polymers are generally used in conjunction with compatible plasticizers to produce insensitive PBXs.…”

“…Duringo xidationo fe nergetic materials CO 2 and H 2 O are produced but any nitrogeni nr eactanti se xhaled as N 2 gas. Therefore, ONO 2 and NO 2 groupsa re the major oxygen source in energetic compounds and plasticizersc ontaining nitro and nitrato groups [1,3].A lkyl-NENAs have excellent plasticizing characteristics [5] and goodp hysicochemical properties. Literature survey reveals thats everal investigations on the performance of NENA-based gun propellants have been reported [6].…”

N-Nitropyridinium Nitrate: An Efficient Nitrating Agent for the Synthesis of 2-[Butyl(nitro)amino]ethyl Nitrate (n-BuNENA)

“…The search for promising high-energy materials during the last two decade has led to the discovery of a vast number of energetic oxidizers, fuels and explosives for possible use as an energetic ingredient in propellant/explosive formulations. Among these types of materials, plasticizers containing nitro and nitrato groups are considered to be one of the practical ways to improve the physical and energetic level of solid propellants [5,6]. Nitroxyethylnitramine (NENA) plasticizers were a new family of energetic plasticizers which were originally discovered in the 1940s [7] and have emerged recently because they generate low molecular weight combustion gases and their starting materials are commercially available at low cost.…”