Aluminum/copper oxide nanostructured energetic materials prepared by solution chemistry and electrophoretic deposition

Abstract

Nanostructured energetic materials benefit from improved spatial distribution and enhanced interfacial contact between reducing agents and oxidizing agents, and thus they have attracted increasing attention in the past decade. In this study Al/CuO nanostructured energetic materials were prepared by combining a solution chemistry method and electrophoretic deposition. A piece of clean Cu foil was first placed in a solution consisting of NaOH and (NH₄)S₂O₈ to form a layer of copper hydroxide, which was then dehydrated in an oven at 180 °C for 4 h to obtain CuO nanostructures. Nano Al particles were integrated with the CuO nanostructures by electrophoretic deposition to form Al/CuO nanostructured energetic materials. Thermal analysis showed that the prepared nanostructured energetic materials had lower apparent activation energy than that of a randomly mixed counterpart thanks to the structural design.