Enhanced energy delivery of direct-write fabricated reactive materials with energetic graphene oxide

Aluminum (Al) based reactive materials are of interest as their addition can significantly increase the energy density of energetic composites such as solid propellants. In this study, we employed graphene oxide (GO) as an energetic gas generator to increase the ignitability of Al and promote the flame propagation of Al/CuO thermite composites. Compared to the pristine Al/CuO composite, 2.5 wt % addition of GO releases gas and heat upon disproportionation, resulting in a 2X higher burn rate and heat flux. Though both GO and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) addition can reduce the agglomeration size of Al NPs by 2X, GO is more energetic with heat and gas release at low temperature, granting it the ability to increase the ignitability of Al NPs and promote the energy delivery of Al/CuO composite. This study provides a simple way to increase the energy delivery rate of reactive materials by adding a small percentage of functionalized carbon nanomaterials.