Thermal History Effects on Decomposition Behavior and Pyrolysis Mechanism of Cellulose Nitrate

Abstract Nitrocellulose is an important kind of energetic material produced by replacing hydroxyl of cellulose molecule to nitro, which has a wide application range in social life. During transportation and storage, inevitably the quality of the nitrocellulose will be affected due to external ambient heating. In this study, two kinds of NC samples, original and heated ones, were used as research objects and taken into DSC experiments under several constant heating rates to explore thermal history effects on its decomposition and combustion behavior. A series of calculation methods based on model fitting were main ways for research, so were model free methods. Numerical results by model fitting method showed that decomposition reaction of NC follows n -th reaction model. The comparison between experimental results of two kinds of samples claimed that thermal history had positive influence on heat flow, and increased the reaction order of decomposition process, and decreased the characteristic temperatures. So the thermal history made the decomposition reaction more difficult to take place and more stable. This study is obviously meaningful for the research of thermal pyrolysis process of NC after thermal history.