Enhanced combustion behavior of TKX-50/B/NC composites via electrospray

TKX-50, as a representative of a new nitrogen-rich energetic compound, has attracted extensive interests due to its high energy and low sensitivity properties. As an important energetic material, combustible agent has great influence on improving the energy level of explosives and propellants. Boron powder has become the most potential combustible agent in energetic fields because of its unique performances. In this work, nano-boron-based microspheres containing TKX-50 are directly fabricated by electrospray deposition. The prepared microspheres showed high monodispersity with particle size ranging from ~1–3 μm. Thermal behavior results show that the mass gain of the electrostatically sprayed sample is 163.3%, which is much higher than that of pure boron and physically mixed samples. Combustion behavior tests show that electrosprayed microspheres exhibit outstanding performance in comparison to physical mixed sample, the peak pressure improved by 85%, the burning time decreased by 21% and the pressurization rate improved by 136%. These excellent properties are probably related to their uniform microstructure. Therefore, electrospray preparation of microspheres with controllable structure has a good application prospect in energetic materials.