Thermal decomposition of ammonium nitrate modeling of thermal dissociation in thermal analysis

Pressure thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis is used to study the thermal decomposition of ammonium nitrate (AN) in open and nonisothermal conditions as functions of the sample amount, heating rate, flow rate of purge gas, shape of sample pans, and pressure. The thermal decompositions are simulated using a physicochemical model. The thermal decomposition of AN consists of a chemical reaction and a thermal dissociation process-a physical process. The model considers thermal dissociation as a first-order diffusion model and succeeds in reproducing the experimental results. This method can be widely used for the thermal analysis of energetic materials.