Designing coupling reaction of aluminum with fluorine and oxygen to tune combustion reaction and energy output

Aluminum (Al) has been wildly applied in energy, chemical industry and aerospace due to its appropriate reaction kinetics and readily availability, however, a huge issue is incomplete combustion reaction and energy output resulted from inert Al 2 O 3 shell, oxidants lack and products agglomeration. Herein, fluorine as a strong oxidant is introduced to construct coupling reaction of Al with oxygen and fluorine to enhance combustion reaction and energy output. Fluorine could react with Al 2 O 3 shell to form AlF 3 that promote mass diffusion and heat transfer, and inhibit agglomeration. More importantly, significantly enhanced energy and pressure output can be obtained because of high reaction heat of F-Al and relatively low melting point of AlF 3 . To illustrate coupling reaction of Al with oxygen and fluorine, Al/PTFE/HMX energetic microspheres have been prepared and show much higher energy and larger flame area than those of Al/HMX. Additionally, Al/F ratio has obviously impact on the combustion reaction behavior and detonation heat, overpressure and flame area. This work provides a new and effective approach to improve combustion reaction and energy output of Al based energetic materials. In order to solve the problem of incomplete combustion of aluminum, fluorine with oxidizing properties is introduced into aluminized explosives to construct a fluorine-oxygen coupling reaction and improve the reaction efficiency of aluminum. Results show that the addition of fluorine significantly improves the heat release and pressure output of energetic materials. • Coupling reaction based on Al was designed to enhance combustion reaction. • The addition of 5 % PTFE significantly improved the reaction performance. • The ratio of Al/PTFE affects the detonation, overpressure, and fireball.