Catalytic decomposition of ammonium perchlorate on hollow mesoporous CuO microspheres

Hollow mesoporous CuO microspheres (CuO-HM) have been prepared by a hard-template method and their structure properties as well as catalytic performance in ammonium perchlorate (AP) decomposition were fully investigated by XRD, SEM, XPS, TG/DSC and TG/F-TIR methods. The results indicated that CuO-HM could be described as CuO micro-sized spheres composed of self-assembled nanoparticles, possessing hollow and mesoporous structure. Compared with CuO nanoparticles and CuO microspheres, CuO-HM has significantly improved catalytic efficiency in AP decomposition due to large surface area, easily accessible porous and hollow structure. Typically, CuO-HM could decrease the AP decomposition temperature by 105.7 °C and enhance the heat production by 735 J/g. TG/FT-IR results indicated that CuO-HM accelerated the thermal decomposition of AP mainly at the high temperature decomposition stage with the releasing of N2O, NO, NH3, H2O, HCl, O2 et al. This study demonstrated that hollow and mesoporous CuO was a promising catalyst for the application in solid fuel rockets propellants.