Tuning the reactivity of Al/Fe₂O₃ nanoenergetic materials via an approach combining soft template self-assembly with sol-gel process process

A bottom-up approach combining soft template self-assembly with sol-gel process, was adopted to prepare the assembled Al/Fe₂O₃ nanoenergetic materials, assembly-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample. The other two unassembled Al/Fe₂O₃a nanoenergetic materials, sol-gel-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample and mixing-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample, were prepared by sol-gel method and physical mixing method respectively. The assembly process within the preparation of the assembly-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample was analyzed through the changes in the average hydrodynamic diameters of the particles and the micelles in solution. SEM, EDS and TEM tests were performed to demonstrate a significant improvement regarding to dispersity and arrangements of the Al and Fe₂O₃ particles in the assembled samples, compared to that of the unassembled Al/Fe₂O₃ samples. DSC test was employed to characterize the reactivity of the samples. The heat release of the assembled Al/Fe₂O₃ sample was 2088 J/g, about 400 and 990 J/g more than that of the sol-gel-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample and mixing-Al/Fe₂O₃ sample, respectively.