High-energy Al/graphene oxide/CuFe2O4 nanocomposite fabricated by self-assembly: Evaluation of heat release, ignition behavior, and catalytic performance
Jinghua Wang, Jingjing Wang, Shaojie Wang, Hui Li, Qi‐Long Yan, Kang Xu
Abstract
As part of our ongoing search for high-performance nanoenergetic materials, we herein used self-assembly guided by negatively charged graphene oxide (GO) to fabricate a high-energy Al/GO/CuFe2O4 nanocomposite with a dense layered structure featuring evenly mixed Al and CuFe2O4 nanoparticles uniformly loaded on the GO surface. Investigation of the effects of the equivalence ratio (Φ = 1.00–1.75) showed that the heat release achieved at the optimal value of Φ = 1.50 (3175 ± 65 J·g−1) exceeded that of most known thermites, while the fierce ignition process of this composite was characterized by an ignition delay time of (0.025 ± 0.002) s, a flame propagation speed of (14.3 ± 3.8) m·s−1, and a continuous reaction duration of (33 ± 0.58) ms. In addition, the nanocomposite with Φ = 1.00 effectively catalyzed the thermal decomposition of 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) and ammonium perchlorate (AP), decreasing their decomposition temperatures by 7.4 and 64.8 °C, respectively, reducing their apparent activation energies of decomposition by 118.7 and 18 kJ·mol−1, respectively. And the constant-volume combustion enthalpies of RDX and AP increase with the addition of Al/GO/CuFe2O4. The reason of this enhanced performance was probed by analyzing the nanocomposite assembly process, and a plausible assembly mechanism was proposed.