Interaction and mechanism of nitrocellulose and N-methyl-4-nitroaniline by isothermal decomposition method

The influence of N-methyl-4-nitroaniline (MNA) on the thermal stability of nitrocellulose (NC) was investigated via an isothermal decomposition dynamics research method. The Arrhenius equation and model-fitting were used to calculate the thermal decomposition kinetic parameters of NC and MNA/NC (3 wt%) composite. Results showed that the thermal decomposition activation energy of NC/MNA (3 wt%) was significantly increased compared with that of pure NC, indicating that the thermal stability of NC was increased with stabilizer MNA addition. Subsequently, the storage life of NC and MNA/NC (3 wt%) composite was estimated using Berthelot equation. It was found that if the decomposition extent reaches 0.1% as the end of life criterion, 3 wt% stabilizer MNA addition significantly extended the storage life of NC from 10.57 to 24.9 years at ambient temperature (298.15 K) with the life extension rate reaching 135.6%. Furthermore, the intermediate product produced by MNA and NC action was extracted and characterized via UV-Vis, HPLC, H-1 NMR, FT-IR, and LC-MS, and a possible stabilization mechanism of MNA to NC was proposed.