Recent Research Progress in Burning Rate Catalysts

Abstract

Burning rate catalysts are one of the most important components of rocket propellants and are able to enhance solid propellant burning rates. There are several kinds of burning rate catalysts such as nanometal burning rate catalysts, nanometal oxide burning rate catalysts, compound burning rate catalysts, ferrocene and its derivatives burning rate catalysts, and so on. This article reviews the recent research processes in burning rate catalysts.

Preparation and characterization of copper azide nanowire array

“…Similarly, in the area of energetic materials, the initiation and detonation properties of explosives are strongly influenced by their microscopical properties. Many published works on EMs suggest that reducing the particle size to the nanoscale may result in reduction of the masstransport rate and therefore would increase the burning rates [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Reducing the particle size can also increase density, calory, stability and mechanical properties.…”

Ionic binuclear ferrocenyl compounds containing 1,1,3,3-tetracyanopropenide anions – synthesis, structural characterization and catalytic effects on thermal decomposition of main components of solid propellants

“…It is proposed that a ferrocenebased BR catalyst decomposes only at high temperature to produce iron oxide nanoparticles if the catalyst possesses excellent thermal stability. The nanosized iron oxide particles are believed to be the actual catalyst for the combustion process of the solid propellants [2][3][4]. The thermal decomposition behavior of the new compounds was therefore examined by TG and DSC techniques.…”

“…However, they migrate easily from propellant grain to insulation during prolonged storage and evaporate and/or sublime conspicuously during propellant fabrications. These drawbacks could give rise to destruction of ballistic performances of the propellants and even to explosion when mixing with ultra-fine AP under certain circumstances [2][3][4]. A number of low-migratory ferrocene-based BR catalysts were synthesized in this situation, and some of them exhibited very high catalytic activities [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19].…”

“…Ferrocene and its derivatives used as burning-rate (BR) catalysts (combustion modifiers) in solid propellants can be dated to the early 1960s [1][2][3][4]. Until now, although a number of other ferrocene derivatives have been prepared to be used as potential BR catalysts, commercially available ferrocene-based BR catalyst are mainly alkylsubstituted ferrocenes such as n-butylferrocene (NBF), tertbutylferrocene (TBF), and 2,2-bis(ethylferrocenyl)propane (Catocene) [2].…”

Large scale synthesis and characterization of &#x03B1;-Fe<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> nanoparticles for propellant applications

“…propellant and pyrotechnic formulations [3]. It is used as an oxidizer for pyrotechnic composition [4,5] and as a burn rate modifier/ catalyst in composite rocket propellant [6,7]. Efficiency of a-Fe20 3 in HEMs is influenced by many properties of the material such as purity, crystallographic phase, crystallite size, particle size, surface area and dispersity.…”