Effect of Structure of Energetic Materials on Burning Rate

Abstract

AbstractData on the steady-state combustion in a constant-pressure bomb at 0.1–40 MPa are presented for energetic materials from the following classes: metal salts of organic explosive acids, salts of organic bases with inorganic oxidizing acids, explosive coordination compounds, and endothermic polynitrogen compounds.For combustion of salts of organic bases with oxidizing acids it has been found that an increase in the oxidant redox potential, whose value serves as an estimate of the oxidizer reactivity, causes the burning rate value to increase. The same tendency has been disclosed for explosive coordination compounds which can formally be considered as metal-containing analogs of the salts of organic bases with oxidizing acids.The introduction of a metal atom in an organic explosive acid has been shown to result generally in an enhancement of the burning rate, with the effectiveness of the metal as the combustion catalyst being dependent not only on the nature of the metal but on its position in the molecule as well.Neither the nature of the metal, nor the nature and structure of the ligand really affects the combustion of coordination compounds of metal azides, whose combustion occurs at the expense of the heat produced in the decomposition process. All the coordination azides seem to have the same rate-limiting stage, namely, the decomposition of the intermediate HN3 and differ from one another by their burning temperatures. The similar behavior is also characteristic of metalless analogs of the coordination azides: salts of HN3 with amines.