Preparation and thermal performance of nitrocellulose coated by polydopamine

Abstract The existing stabilizers for nitrocellulose (NC) have various disadvantages of harming human health and polluting the environment, which does not meet the requirements of “green” propellants. This research work investigates the self‐polymerization of dopamine to prepare polydopamine (PDA) coated NC composites, and explores the effects of PDA on the thermal stability of NC. SEM, FT‐IR, and RAMAN were applied to investigate the changes of NC surface morphology and chemical structure. The results show that PDA is effectively coated on the NC surface and form a dense PDA film. The thermal decomposition behavior of NC was studied by TG and DSC, and the thermal decomposition activation energy was calculated. The results showed that the thermal stability of the physical mixture did not improve. The thermal stability of the complex increases first and then decreases with increasing of the concentration of dopamine hydrochloride. The optimal reaction conditions are that the concentration of dopamine hydrochloride is 3 g/L and the reaction time is 24 h. The thermal decomposition activation energy of the sample under the optimal conditions is 190.00 kJ/mol, 8.91% higher than that of NC (174.45 kJ/mol), which proves that PDA has the ability to improve the thermal stability of NC.