Journal of Energetic Materials

Traditional thermites are generally composed of micron-Al particles. These kinds of thermites usually exhibit poor reactivity characteristics such as a poor heat release and high ignition temperature. In this research, the influence of Mg-Viton as additive on the thermal behavior of Al/CuO systems was verified using thermal analysis techniques. In this paper, thermite mixtures are prepared using two approaches. In one, simple physical mixing was used to prepare µm-Al/nm-CuO and nm-Al/nm-CuO thermites. In the other approach, the (µm-Al/nm-CuO)+Mg/Viton and (nm-Al/nm-CuO)+Mg/Viton mixtures were prepared using solvent/nonsolvent method. Thermal analysis results indicated that the (µm-Al/nm-CuO)+Mg/Viton mixture is ignited at 781.9 °C with significant heat of reaction of 2621.4 Jg^-1. Analysis of thermal behavior of this mixture showed that the nitridation of magnesium additive in air initiates the thermite reaction between Al and CuO. Moreover, TG-DSC data of the (nm-Al/nm-CuO)+Mg/Viton mixture indicated that the addition of Mg-viton has no significant effect on the thermal efficiency of nm-Al/nm-CuO thermite.