Today’s ammunition comprises sparingly about 30 wt% of payloads like RDX-based explosive meanwhile, the bulk of the mass consists of structural materials such as metals (e.g., steel and aluminum), which do not contribute energetically. This highlights a significant potential for the improvement of reactive structural materials (RSMs). This class of advanced materials is designed to serve dual purposes: providing structural integrity and releasing chemical energy upon activation. Rigid polymers with glass transition temperature (T g ) higher than the operating temperatures are thought as a new emerging candidate to replace the heavy and metal-based materials (e. g., alloys, thermites). According to this vision, we report the synthesis and characterization of resorcinol-based benzoxazine (Re-Bz) energetic polymer utilizing resorcinol as a renewable material. The assessment of the energetic properties was reported as well. Overall, the newly developed polymer showed promising energetic performances with deflagration temperatures of about 270-275°C, where the combustion heat released during the deflagration was found to be 20.15 kJ·g −1 . The thermal analysis results highlighted that these polymers can be effectively used as reactive structure materials (RSMs) owing to their combination of rigidity above operational temperatures and remarkable energetic performances.
Mehelli et al. (Fri,) studied this question.