Kinetic Stability and Propellant Performance of Green Energetic Materials

Journal article, 2010

A thorough theoretical investigation of four promising green energetic materials is presented. The kinetic stability of the dinitramide, trinitrogen dioxide, pentazole, and oxopentazole anions has been evaluated in the gas phase and in solution by using high-level ab initio and DFT calculations. Theoretical UV spectra, solid-state heats of formation, density, as well as propellant performance for the corresponding ammonium salts are reported. All calculated properties for dinitramide are in excellent agreement with experimental data. The stability of the trinitrogen dioxide anion is deemed sufficient to enable synthesis at low temperature, with a barrier for decomposition of approximately 27.5 kcal mol−1 in solution. Oxopentazolate is expected to be approximately 1200 times more stable than pentazolate in solution, with a barrier exceeding 30 kcal mol−1, which should enable handling at room temperature. All compounds are predicted to provide high specific impulses when combined with aluminum fuel and a polymeric binder, and rival or surpass the performance of a corresponding ammonium perchlorate based propellant. The investigated substances are also excellent monopropellant candidates. Further study and attempted synthesis of these materials is merited.