Chemical modification of nitrocellulose by grafting sodium carboxymethyl

Introducing deterrents improves the thermal stability of nitrocellulose of propellant surface, but is accompanied with inevitable problems, such as migration, residue, smoke flame, and so on. In this paper, sodium carboxymethyl function groups were chemically grafted to nitrocellulose molecular chains by reaction of denitration and following etherification, which provided thermal stability, flame suppression ion without deterrent migration. Various structure characterizations were conducted and confirmed the sodium carboxymethyl-nitrocellulose (CMNC) was prepared successfully. The number of sodium carboxymethyl groups linked to nitrocellulose chains was affected by both denitration and etherification. The results of thermal analysis showed that the thermal stability of CMNC improved with the increase of bearing sodium carboxymethyl groups and was better than that of original NC sample. Meanwhile, the thermal decomposition behaviors and decomposition products of CMNC are similar to that of NC at temperature of the first DTG peak T max and that of CMC at temperatures of the second DTG peak T 2 . This work provided a way for designing gun propellant with progressive burning, anti-migration and flame suppression simultaneously.