Ball Milling Produced FeF₃-Containing Nanothermites: Investigations of Its Thermal and Inflaming Properties

Thermites are widely employed in explosives and propellants. However, it is difficult to fabricate nanothermites with low cost, nanoscale size and large production simultaneously. In this work, we employed ball milling process to manufacture varying ratio of FeF₃-containing nanothermites in a large scale. The obtained nanothermites presented excellent stability and were characterized by X-ray diffraction, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy. The nanothermites particles could be optimized into nearly spherical shape together with an average diameter of 23.2 nm and a specific surface area of 26.33 m²/g. Moreover, the thermal stabilities, hydrophobicities and combustion properties were also symmetrically investigated via thermogravimetric analysis, hydrophobic angle test and infrared temperature measurement, showing that the vinyltrimethoxysilane covered FeF₃-containing nanothermites displayed similar hydrophobicity, lower initial oxidation temperatureand faster burning rate, respectively, compared to the ball-milled aluminum nanoparticles.