Electrophoretic deposition of high adhesion energetic coatings (e.g., NiO-Al/Fe2O3)

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is a promising method for fast-preparing thermite (Al/MOx) coatings and other energetic coatings with the advantages of simplicity, low cost, and wide adoptability for complex shapes. However, post-sintering treatment is unsuitable for enhancing the poor adhesion of electrophoretic Al/MOx coating and other energetic coatings because of the contradiction between the sintering temperature and the trigger temperature of thermite reaction. In this work, electrophoretic Al/MOx (i.e., Fe2O3) coatings with high adhesion were designed by using other MOx nanoparticles (i.e., NiO) prepared via oil-phase synthesis (named as O-MOx) as an outer coating. DSC curves show that the value of heat release in the electrophoretic NiO-Al/Fe2O3 coating is 2568 J g−1. The combustion test successfully confirms a violent and quick energy releasing of the designed Al/Fe2O3 coating. More attractively, this strategy can also be employed to prepare many other kinds of Al/MOx coating (i.e., CuO, MoO3, WO3, Bi2O3) or energetic coating (i.e., B/Ti) with good adhesion via EPD. In summary, this study provides a general strategy for electrophoretic preparation of Al/MOx coatings with high adhesion, excellent thermodynamic properties and electrical explosion performance, which would solve the key issue for preparing Al/MOx coatings through EPD technology.