Making Progress Towards « Green » Propellants – Part III

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.