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The correlations among detonation velocity, heat of combustion, thermal stability and decomposition kinetics of nitric esters

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Abstract

In this paper, the thermal stability and decomposition kinetics of 10 nitric esters including nitroglycerine (NG), pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), trimethylolethane trinitrate (TMETN), dipentaerythritol hexanitrate (DiPEHN), trimethylolpropane trinitrate (TMPTN), xylitol pentanitrate (XPN), sorbitol hexanitrate (SHN), erythritol tetranitrate (ENT), mannitol hexanitrate (MHN) and nitroisobutylglycerol trinitrate (NiBGT) are investigated by non-isothermal TG and DSC. It has been shown that the mass loss processes of NG, TMETN and TMPTN are more dependent on the heating rate, and the simultaneous evaporation makes the initial temperatures for their mass loss lower than those of the other nitric esters. Based on the correlations among their thermal stability, activation energy, detonation velocity and heat of combustion, one could conclude that the oxygen coefficient (α) plays a positive role on the decomposition heat release efficiency (η d) when it is less than one, whereas when the α is greater than or equals to one, the fuel elements such as C and H contents would play a decisive role on η d. It has been further proved that the order of contribution rate of function groups on the tertiary carbon to the detonation velocity could be –CH3 < –NO2 < –C2H5 < –ONO2. In addition, the introduction of function groups to the tertiary carbon is in favor of increasing the thermal stability of nitric esters due to increase in symmetry and rigidity of their molecules. The proportion numbers (C s) of methylene group (–CH2–) to tertiary carbon or quaternary carbon will, to some extent, determine the thermal stability of the nitric esters.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by funding of “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” with Project number of 3102017OQD003 and “Thousand Youth Talents Plan” with project code of 17GH030127.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xi’an Modern Chemistry Research Institute, Xi’an, 710065, China

    Jun Dong & Xiao-Fei Qi

  2. Science and Technology on Combustion, Thermal Structure, and Internal Flow Laboratory, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Qi-Long Yan, Pei-Jin Liu & Wei He

  3. Institute of Energetic Materials, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice, 532 10, Pardubice, Czech Republic

    Svatopluk Zeman

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  1. Jun Dong
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Correspondence to Qi-Long Yan or Pei-Jin Liu.

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Dong, J., Yan, QL., Liu, PJ. et al. The correlations among detonation velocity, heat of combustion, thermal stability and decomposition kinetics of nitric esters. J Therm Anal Calorim 131, 1391–1403 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-017-6706-5

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