Iron/aluminum nanocomposites prepared by one-step reduction method and their effects on thermal decomposition of AP and AN

Aluminum (Al) powder is widely used in solid propellants. In particular, nano-Al has attracted extensive scholarly attention in the field of energetic materials due to its higher reactivity than micro-Al. However, the existence of aluminum oxide film on its surface reduces the heat release performance of the aluminum powder, which greatly limits its application. Hence, this paper used iron, a component of solid propellant, to coat micron-Al and nano-Al to improve the heat release efficiency and reactivity of Al powder. SEM, TEM, EDS, XRD, XPS, and BET were used to investigate the morphological structure and properties of pure Al and Fe/Al composite fuels of different sizes. The results show that Fe was uniformly coated on the surface of Al powder. There was no reaction between Fe and Al, and Fe/Al composite fuels had a larger specific surface area than pure Al, which could better improve the reactivity of pure Al. Besides, the catalytic effects of pure Al and Fe/Al composite fuels of different sizes on ammonium perchlorate and ammonium nitrate were explored. The results show that the catalysis of pure Al powder could be greatly improved by coating Fe on the surface of Al powder. Especially, the micron-Fe/Al composite fuel had a higher catalytic effect than the pure nano-Al powder. Hence, Fe/Al composite fuels are expected to be widely used in solid propellants.