Half-life Determination of Stabilizer Degradation of Double-Base Gun Propellant

The double-base solid propellants normally include nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin and diphenyl amine (DPA) as energetic polymer, energetic plasticizer and stabilizer, respectively. Half-life of a gun double-base solid propellant containing these compounds was determined by accelerated aging method. Extraction of propellant stabilizer has been done by using a Soxhlet apparatus and dichloromethane solvent from aged samples at temperatures 55, 70 and 85 °C. Extracted samples were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography. The amount of DPA was measured in interval times 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 hours using HPLC method. Kinetic and Arrhenius equations showed a half-life of 14 months at 25 °C temperature for tested gun double-base propellant.