Effect of organic eutectic on nitrocellulose stability during artificial aging

Recently, the eutectic composition of organic binary mixtures MENA+DPA has been found to be an efficient stabilizer of nitrocellulose. However, the behavior of such new stabilizer must be further investigated, especially after a long period of storage of the energetic composition. In this study, the stabilizing effect of the eutectic MENA+DPA on NC stability during artificial aging (at 338.65 K for 120 days), compared to its pure components, has been investigated by conventional stability tests and kinetic modeling. According to Bergmann & Junk (T = 405.15 K) results and over the entire period of aging, the eutectic MENA+DPA exhibits the best stabilizing effect on NC. The vacuum stability test (T = 353.15, 363.15, 373.15, and 383.15 K) results revealed that the amount of the evolved gas of NC containing this eutectic composition is very close to that of DPA, known as the conventional stabilizer. Furthermore, the kinetic modeling on VST data, obtained at four isothermal temperatures, was performed by two different methodologies, viz, fitting and free models to determine the kinetic triplets, which have been subsequently used to predict the storage lifetime for the studied systems. It was found that the NC stabilized by the eutectic MENA+DPA presents the highest value of the activation energy and has the longest storage lifetime during the entire heating period corroborating the stability tests results and affirming the excellent stabilizing effect of this mixture with respect to its pure component even if a long storage period is expected.