Making Progress Towards « Green » Propellants – Part III

Abstract

Stabilisers are an integral part of a propellant composition. They are essential for ensuring the chemical stability of nitrate‐ester based propellants, preventing oxidation, chain scission and uncontrolled heat generation. Progress is being made, especially in Europe, with REACh legislation (1907/2006) to use more environmentally‐friendly compounds. New stabilisers with a greener environmental profile and producing less toxic daughter products have been investigated by several groups, and several compounds demonstrated even better performances – more chemical stability and therefore longer shelf lives than formulations with the currently‐used stabilisers. Additionally, the good efficiencies and lower toxicities of the daughter products of the “green” stabilisers are also evaluated. This paper is a continuation of our previous work and demonstrates that for industrially‐manufactured propellants, that the tests performed by four different entities validate the stability and compatibility of the propellants, investigated previously on a laboratory scale, providing the community with safer formulations for the environment and health.