The role of oxygen and humidity in NC decomposition

The decomposition of NC is an intensively and already long-lasting investigated subject. Nevertheless, there are still some questions open to discussion. In this work, several aspects have been investigated: One aspect is the decomposition of NC under defined relative humidity. A series of mass loss measurements under ambient control have been conducted. The results obtained so far will be presented, and experimental peculiarities and control will be discussed. Another aspect is the decomposition of NC under different gas atmospheres. A series of ARC measurements have been conducted with different mixtures of Argon and synthetic air and the results will be discussed. In addition, the change in activation energy from 80 kJ/mol below 60 °C to 120 kJ/mol above 60 °C is discussed. This phenomenon is known from gun propellants and reflects itself in the respective STANAGs when calculating in-service times of NC based gun propellants. In this study, decomposition of pure NC has been studied by mass loss in the temperature range of 40 °C to 80 °C. The results could suggest that this change of reaction mechanism is not caused alone by the NC in this temperature range.