Nitromethane gels and their applications

Nitromethane (NM) is a highly energetic, detonatable and liquid organic nitro compound which may be used as a monopropellant, a bipropellant component, or a high explosive. The relatively non-toxic nature of NM, high energy content, low viscosity, ease of manufacture and handling make it an interesting prospect for present and future propulsion and explosive technologies. Nitromethane exhibits high specific impulse. It has a great potential to prepare of energetic gels. Nitromethane gels have two major applications. The gels are employed as propellant, and also used as explosives. In general, gel propellants exhibit a specific impulse comparable to liquid propellants and their performance can be increased even further through the addition of additives such as metal particles. Gel propellants have less sensitive than liquid and solid propellants. Nitromethane gel is environmentally friendly. In this paper, the applications of variety of nitromethane gels and effect of some additives on their properties will be investigated.