Iron oxide is the most common catalyst in solid rocket propellant. Increased performance of propellant by encapsulating iron oxide particles within ammonium perchlorate (AP) has been previously demonstrated, but only nanoscale particles were used, and encapsulation was only accomplished in fine AP ( microns in diameter). In this study, the size of the particle inclusions were extended to micron scale within the AP particles, and the particle sizes of the AP-encapsulated catalyst particles were increased to the coarse region (hundreds of microns). Fractional crystallization techniques were used with fine AP-encapsulated particles acting as nucleation sites for precipitation. This paper reports catalyst particle inclusions of micron scale, as well as nanoscale, within AP and presents characterization of this encapsulation. Encapsulating micron-sized particles and growing these composite particles could pave the way for numerous possible applications. A study of the thermal degradation of these AP-encapsulated particles compared against a standard mixture of iron oxide and AP showed that AP-encapsulated micron-scale catalyst particles exhibited similar behavior to AP-encapsulated nanoscale particles. Using computed tomography, it was found that catalyst particles were dispersed throughout the interior of coarse AP-encapsulated micron-scale catalyst particles and decomposition was induced within these particles around catalyst-rich regions.
Decomposition of Ammonium-Perchlorate-Encapsulated Nanoscale and Micron-Scale Catalyst Particles
Journal of Propulsion and Power ; 36 , 6 ; 862-868
2020-05-22
7 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English