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Thermal behavior and decomposition kinetics of Formex-bonded explosives containing different cyclic nitramines

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Abstract

Thermal behavior and decomposition kinetics of Formex-bonded PBXs based on some attractive cyclic nitramines, such as 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazinane (RDX) and 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocane (HMX). Actually, cis-1,3,4,6-tetranitrooctahy droimidazo-[4,5-d]imidazole (BCHMX) and 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10, 12-hexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20), was investigated by means of nonisothermal thermogravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It was found that the mass loss rate of PBXs involved in this research depends greatly on heating rate and the residue of the decomposition of these PBXs decreases with the heating rate. The onset of the exotherms was noticed at 215.4, 278.7, 231.2 and 233.7 °C with the peak maximum at 235.1, 279.0, 231.2 and 233.7 °C for RDX-Formex, HMX-Formex, CL-20-Formex, and BCHMX-Formex, respectively. Their corresponding exothermic changes were 1788, 1237, 691, and 1583 J g−1. It was also observed that the dependence on the heating rate for onset temperatures of HMX- and BCHMX-based PBXs was almost the same due to their similar molecular structure. In addition, based on nonisothermal TG data, the kinetic parameters for thermal decomposition of these PBXs were calculated by isoconversional methods. It was shown that the Formex base has great effects on the activation energy distribution of nitramines. It was further found that the kinetic compensation effects occurred during the thermal decomposition of nitramine-based PBXs, and they almost have the same compensation effects due to similar decomposition mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

The work in this paper was mainly carried out as a part of the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic Project No. VG20102014032. The work was also partially supported by the research project (No. MSM 00221627501) provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth & Sports of the Czech Republic.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Qi-Long Yan, Svatopluk Zeman & Jakub Šelešovský

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice, 532 10, Pardubice, Czech Republic

    Roman Svoboda

  3. Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt

    Ahmed Elbeih

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  1. Qi-Long Yan
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  2. Svatopluk Zeman
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Correspondence to Svatopluk Zeman.

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Yan, QL., Zeman, S., Šelešovský, J. et al. Thermal behavior and decomposition kinetics of Formex-bonded explosives containing different cyclic nitramines. J Therm Anal Calorim 111, 1419–1430 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-012-2492-2

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