Graphene oxide-(ferrocenylmethyl) dimethylammonium 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one composites as catalysts on the combustion of HTPB propellant

Graphene-based combustion catalysts have attracted much attention from propellant chemists due to their excellent catalytic performance. To investigate the synergistic effect of graphene oxide and ferrocene derivatives, graphene oxide-(ferrocenylmethyl) dimethylamine-3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (GO@MAFcNTO) composites with different GO contents were prepared by vacuum freeze-drying method. It was systematically characterized by SEM, EDS, FT-IR, XRD, Raman, and XPS. The catalytic action of GO@MAFcNTO on AP was detected by DSC, and the corresponding kinetic parameters were calculated and analyzed by thermal decomposition kinetics. In addition, the strand burning rate, pressure index, flame structure, and condensed combustion products of HTPB propellants with or without GO@MAFcNTO were analyzed. The results show that the as-synthesized GO@MAFcNTO can effectively reduce the activation energy and decomposition temperature of AP. In addition, the combustion performance of HTPB propellant containing GO@MAFcNTO has been greatly improved, and the combustion efficiency of aluminum powder has been improved. At 2.0 MPa, the burning rate of HTPB propellant containing GO@MAFcNTO increases from 2.19 mm⋅s−1 to 4.43 mm⋅s−1. The excellent catalytic performance of GO@MAFcNTO comes not only from the uniform dispersion of iron in the GO lamellar of ferrocene derivatives, but also from the excellent conductivity of GO and the synergistic effect of GO and MAFcNTO. Among them, GO can mainly reduce the activation energy in the reaction process, while ferrocene derivatives provide a large number of active sites in the reaction process, and the synergistic effect of the two promotes the complex to have a good catalytic activity.