High energy propellant with reduced pollution

Abstract

This invention relates to energetic compositions, which offer increased performance in conjunction with a total absence of hydrogen chloride in the combustion products. The formulation avoid the use of halogen based oxidizers to prevent the formation of halogen based byproducts. The formulations disclosed herein use ammonium dinitramide as a primary oxidizer, which is a more energetic molecule than ammonium perchlorate. The solid propellant formulations disclosed herein comprise about 5.0 to about 10.0 weight % of at least one energetic binder; about 20.0 to about 35.0 weight % of an energetic plasticizer; about 25.0 to about 45.0 weight % of ammonium dinitramide as a primary oxidizer; about 0.0 to about 20.0 weight % of particulate aluminum having a particle size of about 1 μm to about 60 μm; and about 0.0 to about 20.0 weight % of ultrafine aluminum having a particle size of less than 1 μm. In addition to the ingredients in this basic formulation will be cure catalysts, curatives, crosslinkers, burn rate catalysts and modifiers, thermal and aging stabilizers other such ingredients commonly utilized in solid propellant formulations.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.