Determining kinetic parameters for the thermal decomposition of double base propellant catalyzed by a graphene oxide-barium oxide nanocomposite

This study investigates the potential of barium oxide-graphene oxide nanocomposite (BaO@GO) to catalyze the thermal degradation of double base propellant (DBP). The BaO@GO nanocomposite was synthetized by co-precipitation method and confirmed through FTIR, Raman, and SEM analysis. The catalytic properties were estimated through DSC tool combined with well-known iso-conversional kinetics methods, namely, Vyazovkin's nonlinear integral with compensatory effect (VYA/CE), Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS), and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO). The findings of the study pointed that the presence of BaO@GO had a pronounced effect on DBP's thermal degradation. This resulted in a decrease of 22% in the activation energy leading to an increase in the rate constant, and an enhancement in the heat release by 730 J/g. Nevertheless, a slight influence of the addition of BaO@GO nanocomposite on the critical ignition temperature was observed.