The Effect of Different Morphologies of Polyaniline on Its Catalytic Activity for the Thermal Decomposition of Ammonium Perchlorate

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, a novel strong green catalyst as a promising replacement for conventional transition metal oxides (TMOs) based burning rate modifiers was introduced. For this aim, the morphology of the nano‐porous polyaniline (NP‐PANi) was manipulated by changing its synthesis method, and the effect of that on the activity of the catalyst on the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP) was investigated. To achieve this goal, NP‐PANi was synthesized by three different methods comprising: chemical, sonochemical, and electrochemical routes. The synthesized polymers were deeply characterized using FTIR, N2 adsorption‐desorption, FESEM, and EDAX analysis. From BET results, electro‐PANi has the highest surface area, highest pore volume, and the smallest pore size among others and, as expected revealed the best catalytic activity. It merged two peaks of AP decomposition into a drastically solo sharp peak revealed at low temperature (approximately 90 °C lower than) and increased the enthalpy of the reaction significantly by about 140 %. The obtained results can open a new window in the world of practical green burning rate modifiers for the energetic material industry.