Synthesis of metal oxide porous nanowires and their applications into energetic materials

In this work, we describe a new method to enhance the exothermic reactivity of nano energetic materials by employing of fuel nanoparticles (i.e., Al) and metal oxidizer nanowire (i.e., CuO). With the assistance of an electro spinning method, the composite of PVP and Cu(NO₃)₂ was formed into solid nanowires, and then metal oxide porous nanowires were finally formed by thermal removal of polymer templates at various temperatures (400~800°C). The resulting metal oxide porous nanowires (NWs) were then mixed with Al nanoparticles (NPs) by sonication energy. The nanoenergetic materials composed of Al NPs and CuO NWs prepared in this approach were then exploded by an electronic hot wire to measure the explosion pressure rate (i.e., dP/dt) generated in a pressure cell tester system. As the results of a series of explosion tests for energetic materials prepared with the fixed amount of 13 mg, the explosion pressure rate was the maximum of ~ 15 psi/μ/s at the 30 wt% of Al contents in the composite of Al NPs and CuO NWs. The maximum explosion pressure rate of the composites of Al NPs/CuO NWs found in this approach was significantly increased ~10 times higher than that of the composites of Al NPs/CuO NPs, indicating that the metal oxide NWs provide higher specific surface area between fuel metal and metal oxide reactants so that the oxygen supply from the metal oxide NWs can be made much faster when fuel metal NPs were ignited.