Energetic Materials and Combustion

Energetic materials store large amounts of chemical energy that can be released rapidly through combustion or detonation, making them central to applications ranging from propulsion and mining to airbag deployment and pharmaceutical processing. Researchers working at the intersection of materials science and combustion study how molecular structure—particularly crystal packing arrangements, ionic bonding in energetic salts, and the incorporation of metal nanoparticles—governs macroscopic properties like sensitivity, burn rate, and energy output. Computational tools such as ReaxFF molecular dynamics have become essential for probing thermal decomposition pathways and reaction kinetics at timescales and length scales inaccessible to experiment. Active questions include how to predictably tune the energy-density and stability tradeoff in ionic liquid and nanoenergetic formulations, and how confinement and interfacial effects in nanoscale systems alter ignition behavior compared to bulk materials.

Works

66,282

Total citations

680,083

Keywords

ReaxFFEnergetic SaltsNanoenergetic MaterialsHigh-Energy Density MaterialsMetal NanoparticlesIonic Liquids