Experimental insight into interaction mechanism of 1H-tetrazole and nitrocellulose by kinetics methods and TG-DSC-FTIR analysis

Nitrogen heterocycles as Nitrogen-rich energetic material has been widely popularized due to their desirable properties like low sensitivities, excellent stability, and lower environmental impact, less erosive and less toxic combustion gases , especially in gun propellant application areas. The focus of this study is on investigating interaction mechanism of 1 H-tetrazole (1 H-TZ) and nitrocellulose (NC) by kinetics methods and TG-DSC-FTIR analysis. The mixture (NC-TZ) between 1 H-TZ and NC was prepared by means of physical blending. DSC experiments indicated that the open and closed environment can generate different and important influence on the chemical reaction between 1 H-TZ and NC. Combined with the change of activation energy , it illustrated that the gas 2 H-tetrazole, the isomer of 1 H-TZ, had a significant influence on the thermal decomposition of NC. In comparison with kinetic models of NC and NC-TZ, it can be found that the addition of 1 H-TZ mainly affected the contribution factor and m value in the first stage. The value of m decreased from 1.00 to 0.15, meanwhile, the contribution factor was decreased from 0.50 to 0.12. It showed that NO 2 , the initial decomposition product of NC, had taken part in the thermal decomposition process of 1 H-TZ. TG-DSC-FTIR experiments indicated that there was a chemical reaction between 2 H-tetrazole and the initial decomposition product of NC, NO 2 , to form CO, N 2 O and HN 3 .