Thermal behavior and thermokinetic of double-base propellant catalyzed with magnesium oxide nanoparticles

Catalytic effect of magnesium oxide nanoparticles (nano-MgO) on the thermal behavior and decomposition reaction kinetic of the double-base propellant formulation was investigated in order to model the thermal degradation process. Thermal analysis studies were performed by various techniques, i.e., simultaneous thermogravimetry–differential thermogravimetry (TG–DTG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that magnesium oxide nanoparticles significantly change thermal pattern of the studied propellant. Non-isothermal DSC data were used to predict the thermokinetic parameters such as activation energy, frequency factor, the critical ignition temperature of thermal explosion, the self-accelerating decomposition temperature and thermodynamic parameters of the studied propellant via two well-known integral methods (i.e., Coats–Redfern and Flynn–Wall–Ozawa) and also two differential methods (i.e., Kissinger and Starink). The resulted data showed that nano-MgO could change the thermal decomposition mechanism function and the corresponding kinetic equation to thermal degradation of the propellant sample.