Tuning the surface charges of MoO3 by adsorption of polyethylenimine to realize the electrophoretic deposition of high-exothermic Al/MoO3 nanoenergetic films

Al/MoO 3 nanoenergetic films (nEFs) were successfully prepared by the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method. Polyethylenimine (PEI) was used to modify the surface charge of Al and MoO 3 particles for the first time. In particular, the zeta potentials of Al/MoO 3 were varied from negative value to highly positive one, which could contribute to the co-deposition of Al and MoO 3 particles on the cathode. In addition, an effective adsorption of PEI on the particles was demonstrated by the FT-IR result. The kinetics of EPD process were investigated in this paper that the linear relationship of the equivalence ratio in the deposited film (Φ d ) to that in suspension (Φ s) was observed for Al/MoO 3 nEFs. Furthermore, The FESEM , EDS and XRD analysis showed that Al/MoO 3 nEFs were homogeneous mixed and composed of Al and MoO 3 . The DSC and combustion processes results indicated that the exothermic behaviors were affected by the molar ratio of the fuel (Al) to the oxidizer (MoO 3 ) in Al/MoO 3 nEFs, and reached to the maximum of 3419   J/g and the most violent combustion as the Φ s was 1.6, respectively. Al/MoO 3 nEFs with excellent performance could lead to advances in the microelectro mechanical system technologies.