Microstructural Thermal Zones in Reaction of Nanoenergetics

Despite the potential of nanoenergetics as promising energy sources with high energy densities and fast energy release, our limited ability to predict combustion speeds restricts the utilization of nanoenergetics. Here, we provide a comprehensive analysis of thermal microstructures subject to heterogeneous reactions and propose a new scaling for combustion wave speeds. To control reaction heterogeneity, two different particle interfacial morphologies of physically mixed and core–shell Al/CuO nanoparticles were synthesized. The combustion dynamics and temperature fields were obtained at micrometer-scale resolutions using high-speed and infrared cameras. Experiments showed that the core–shell Al/CuO exhibiting less reaction heterogeneity had a faster wave speed than the physically mixed counterpart, although the measured chemical reaction rates were lower. By employing the thermal structure analysis, we found that the shortened preheat zone and the lengthened reaction zone, attributed to the lower reaction onset temperature and reaction rate, led to the increased wave speed despite the lower reaction rate in the core–shell Al/CuO. From these analyses, we developed a new scaling that describes the combustion wave speeds in nanoenergetics based on intrinsic properties and thermal structures for both morphologies.