Thermolysis, nonisothermal decomposition kinetics, calculated detonation velocity and safety assessment of dihydroxylammonium 5, 5′-bistetrazole-1, 1′-diolate

Thermal decomposition study of dihydroxylammonium 5,5′-bistetrazole-1,1′-diolate (TKX-50) was investigated by using TG–DTG and TG-IR-MS and found that N2, N2O, NH3 and H2O were the main products during the decomposition process. The kinetic parameters (Ea = 138.96 kJ mol−1 and A = 1012.93 s−1) for thermal decomposition reaction of TKX-50 were obtained from DSC profile by differential method and integral method, and the nonisothermal kinetic equation of the exothermic process was \({\text{d}}\alpha /{\text{d}}T = (10^{12.93} /\beta )3(1 - \alpha )[ - \ln (1 - \alpha )]^{2/3} \exp ( - 1.6713 \times 10^{4} /T),\) suggesting that the main exothermic decomposition reaction mechanism of TKX-50 was classified as Avrami–Erofeev equation. In addition, the theoretical detonation velocity (D = 8804 m/s) of TKX-50 at 298.15 K was calculated by a simple method. Finally, the safety parameters of TKX-50 (25 kg) including time to maximum rate under adiabatic conditions and self-accelerating decomposition temperature were calculated to be 142.12 and 129.01 °C by using AKTS software.