Nitrostarch as a promising insensitive energetic biopolymer: Synthesis, characterization, and thermal decomposition kinetics

Natural polysaccharides have been outlined as one of the natural sources with more potential to obtain bio-energetic polymers through the chemical modification of their structure. In this work, nitrostarch, as an energetic nitrogen-rich polysaccharide, was successfully synthesized through the chemical modification of native potato starch . The synthesized energetic polymer and its precursor were extensively characterized using various analytical techniques and the obtained results confirm the functionalization process of the starch. In addition, its physicochemical features, molecular structure, morphology, and thermal behavior were determined using an electronic densimeter, elemental analysis, FTIR, SEM, TGA, and DSC . The sensitivity characteristics, the heat of combustion, and the heat of formation of the synthesized nitrostarch have been determined and its energetic performances were predicted using the EXPLO5 V6.04 software. Experimental results highlight promising features of the nitrostarch such as nitrogen content of 13 %, a density of 1.7365 g/cm 3 , and a detonation velocity of 7892 m/s in comparison to those of conventional nitrocellulose . In addition, the thermal decomposition kinetics of the nitrostarch have been deeply investigated as well using isoconversional kinetics analysis, and its Arrhenius parameters were derived for the first time. Finally, the obtained results demonstrated that this newly produced nitrogen-rich energetic material exhibits interesting energetic performance, which may further promote its application in explosives and high-performance propellants. In addition, this study will help to restore the forgotten interest concerning the employment of nitrostarch as a high-energy bio-polymer and to complete knowledge gaps and future trends for the industrial applications of this compound. • Nitrostarch was successfully prepared from native potato starch. • The properties of nitrostarch were compared to those of cellulose nitrate. • The synthesized nitrostarch revealed high nitrogen content, increased densities, good thermal stability, and outstanding insensitivity characteristics. • The thermal decomposition kinetics of nitrostarch has been deeply investigated and reported for the first time in the literature. • The calculated detonation parameters highlighted the interesting energetic performances of nitrostarch.