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Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 000 (2016) 1–8

www.elsevier.com/locate/proci

Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-sized

aluminum by adding porous silicon
Venkata Sharat Parimi, Sidi Huang, Xiaolin Zheng∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Received 4 December 2015; accepted 29 June 2016

Available online xxx

Abstract

Micron-sized aluminum (Al), due to its large volumetric energy density, is an important fuel additive for
broad propulsion and energetic applications. However, micron-sized Al particles are difficult to ignite and
react slowly, leading to problems such as incomplete combustion and product agglomeration. Many pioneer-
ing strategies have been investigated to overcome the above challenges, ranging from reducing Al particles
to nanoscale, coating them with metallic or polymeric materials, to blending Al with other materials to form
composites. On the other hand, porous Si has emerged as a promising energetic material with a volumetric en-
ergy density comparable to Al, high reactivity at low temperature, and ultrafast flame propagation speeds. To
date, the potential of using porous Si as an additive to enhance ignition and combustion of micron-sized Al
has not been explored. Herein, we experimentally investigated the effect of porous Si addition on the ignition
and combustion characteristics of micron-sized Al with CuO nanoparticles. We consistently observed that
the addition of porous Si facilitates both ignition and combustion of Al/CuO mixtures over a wide range of
experimental conditions, ranging from slow heating rate conditions in differential scanning calorimetry, fast
heating rate conditions in Xe flash ignition, flame propagation in microchannels, to constant-volume pressure
vessel experiments. The enhancement effects are attributed to the easy ignition and fast burning properties of
porous Si, which elevate the ambient temperature and/or pressure, and hence enhance the ignition, reaction
rate, and combustion efficiency of micron-sized Al particles. This work demonstrates that adding porous
Si is another viable strategy toward enhancing the ignition and combustion properties of micron-sized Al
particles.
© 2016 by The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Keywords: Energetic material; Thermite reaction; Porous silicon; Aluminum; Flash ignition

1. Introduction

The combustion of metals is of great inter-

est to the combustion community because metals
have high volumetric and gravimetric energy den-
∗ Corresponding author. Fax: (650) 723-1748. sities [1–5]. Metals, such as aluminum (Al), have
E-mail address: xlzheng@stanford.edu (X. Zheng). been extensively studied due to their applicability as

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.06.185
1540-7489 © 2016 by The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.06.185
JID: PROCI
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2 V.S. Parimi et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 000 (2016) 1–8
additives for propulsion [6,7] and many other ener-
getic applications [8]. While micron-sized Al parti-
cles are typically used in those applications, their
relatively high ignition temperature and slow oxi-
dation process lead to problems such as incomplete
combustion and product agglomeration [9,10] that
results in two-phase flow losses [11]. Extensive ef-
forts have been devoted to overcome those chal-
lenges associated with combustion of micron-sized
Al particles. One approach reduces the Al parti-
cle size down to nanoscale and utilizes the greatly
reduced diffusion length for nano-sized Al. Such
nano-sized Al indeed exhibits reduced ignition de-
lay times and temperatures [12–14], and signifi-
cantly increased burning rates [15–18]. However,
nano-sized Al particles suffer from high manufac-
turing cost, high sensitivity [19], and large dead
mass [13], which make it hard for them to be em-
ployed in practical propulsion applications. An-
other approach explores fluorinated or metallic
coatings (e.g., Ni) that react with the core Al below
the Al melting temperature. As such, those coat-
ings modify the ignition and combustion behav-
iors of Al particles [20] and reduce their agglom-
eration [11,21]. However, the size of agglomerates
still remains one or two orders of magnitude larger
than the initial Al particle sizes, which does not al-
leviate the two-phase flow loss. The third emerg-
ing approach blends micron-sized Al particles with
dissimilar materials, such as Al/Ni composite par-
ticles, polyethylene, nanothermite mixtures, and
fluorocarbon additives [22–26]. Of particular inter-
est is the work by Ilunga et al. [26], who demon-
strated that the addition of nanoscale Si/Bi2 O3 mix-
ture to micron-Al/nano-CuO thermites results in
increased flame propagation speeds and lowered
onset temperatures. While these materials are effec-
tive in reducing Al agglomeration and/or modify-
ing the reactive properties, they lower the compos-
ite volumetric energy density. The potential of us-
ing porous silicon (p-Si) as an additive to tailor the
ignition and combustion characteristics of micron-
sized Al particles has been overlooked so far.
Porous Si is crystalline Si containing nano-sized
pores and hydrogen terminated surfaces [27], and
it has been recognized for almost a decade as a
promising material for energetic and pyrotechni-
cal applications. Si has a gravimetric energy den-
sity (32.43 kJ/g) comparable to Al (31.05 kJ/g),
and experimental measurements indicated that p-
Si/NaClO4 composites are capable of having en-
ergy densities as high as 22.5 ± 2.2 kJ/g(Si) [28]. Fur-
thermore, p-Si exhibits reactivity at low tempera-
ture [29] and ignitability with Xe flash [30], and
p-Si was demonstrated to have flame propagation
speeds from 1 m/s up to 3050 m/s [31–33]. In ad-
dition, p-Si can be oxidized by diverse oxidizers
such as air, sulfur, alkali metal perchlorates, alkali
metal nitrates, and metal oxides. Those properties
make p-Si a very attractive additive to potentially
Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.06.185
[m;July 23, 2016;17:5]
augment the ignition and combustion properties of
micron-sized Al particles.
In the present work, we experimentally investi-
gated the effect of p-Si addition on the ignition and
combustion properties of micron-sized Al/nano-
sized CuO (m-Al/n-CuO) thermite mixtures. For ig-
nition, we uniformly mixed p-Si particles with m-
Al/n-CuO mixtures. We found that the presence of
p-Si effectively lowers the onset temperature of m-
Al/n-CuO under low heating rate differential scan-
ning calorimetry measurements. The addition of
p-Si also lowers the minimum flash ignition en-
ergy and enhances the combustion efficiency of m-
Al/n-CuO under high heating rate Xe flash ignition
experiments. As for combustion, we added ener-
getic p-Si filled with sodium perchlorate (NaClO4 )
underneath m-Al/n-CuO without directly mixing
them together due to safety concerns. Both flame
propagation and constant-volume pressure-vessel
experiments show that the rapid combustion of p-
Si/NaClO4 composites immediately elevate the am-
bient temperature and/or pressure, which greatly
enhances the ignition, and reaction rate of m-Al/n-
CuO thermite mixtures. These experiments demon-
strate for the first time that p-Si is an effective
additive to enhance the ignition and combustion
properties of micron-sized Al particles.
2. Experimental specifications
2.1. Material synthesis
The p-Si film was prepared by the standard elec-
trochemical etching process [27]. Briefly, p-type Si
wafers (0.001–0.005 -cm, El-Cat Inc.) were im-
mersed in an etching solution containing equal
volumes of ethanol and 48% aqueous hydrofluo-
ric acid (HF) in a Teflon cell. A constant current
of 40 mA/cm2 was applied between the Si wafer
(anode) and a silver mesh counter electrode for
90 min, which produces a p-Si film about 180 μm
thick. Freestanding p-Si films were prepared by
electropolishing the p-Si film from the Si wafer in
an electrolyte of HF and ethanol (volume ratio:
1:5) at a current density of 50 mA/cm2 for 15 s. The
freestanding p-Si films were further dried, ground,
and sieved through a mesh to obtain p-Si parti-
cles with diameters of 45 μm or less. The specific
surface area, average pore diameter, and porosity
of those p-Si particles are about 350–400 m2 /g, 5–
9 nm, and 60%, as determined from gas adsorption
measurements. Energetic p-Si composites were pre-
pared by impregnating p-Si particles/films with so-
lutions of NaClO4 in methanol, and they were used
for the constant-volume pressure vessel and flame
propagation experiments to evaluate their impact
on the combustion properties of m-Al/n-CuO. The
m-Al/n-CuO thermite mixtures studied here were
always stoichiometric and were prepared by mix-
ing Al micron particles (3.0–4.5 μm, Alfa Aesar)
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V.S. Parimi et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 000 (2016) 1–8 3

and CuO nanoparticles (∼50 nm, Sigma Aldrich)
in hexane, followed by 30 min sonication, drying
and sieving through a 25 μm mesh. For the prepa-
ration of mixtures of thermite and p-Si, the same
preparation procedures were followed except that
p-Si particles were added to the hexane solvent as
well.
2.2. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and
differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
measurements
The thermal characteristics of three p-Si/m-
Al/n-CuO mixtures (Table 1) were studied by
simultaneous TGA/DSC measurement (Setaram
Labsys Evo). For typical measurements, samples
about 10 mg were placed in alumina crucibles.
The TGA/DSC chamber was first flushed with Ar
(100 sccm) for 30 min to minimize any residual O2 .
Then the samples were heated in an Ar environ-
ment (40 sccm) at a heating rate of 10 K/min from
100 °C to 1350 °C. After the samples were cooled
down to room temperature, they were heated with
the same process again. The second round heat
flow traces were used to correct the baseline of the
first round heat flow traces following the method
described previously [34].
2.3. Measurement of minimum ignition energy
(Emin ) of Xe flash lamp
Flash ignition experiments were carried out in
ambient air. The samples (loose powders, ∼5 mg)
were placed over a 1 mm thick glass slide on top
of the Xe flash tube of a commercial flash unit
(AlienBeesTM B1600) (Fig. 3) [30]. The samples
used for flash ignition experiments are stoichiomet-
ric m-Al/n-CuO mixtures with different amounts
of p-Si particles added, p-Si, and stoichiometric
p-Si/n-CuO mixture for comparison. To determine
the minimum ignition energy Emin , the power of the
Xe flash tube was gradually increased until ignition
occurs. The areal pulse energy of the Xe flash at
those ignition conditions, which is defined as Emin
here, was determined by measuring the temperature
rise of a soot-covered silicon substrate exposed to
the same flash intensity using the same method de-
scribed elsewhere [35]. The samples were replaced
upon each exposure to flash to prevent partially
Table 1
Compositions of the thermite mixtures used for
DSC/TGA analysis.
Mixture Mass fraction (%)
p-Si Al CuO
Al/CuO – 18.4 81.6
p-Si/CuO 15.0 – 85.0
p-Si/Al/CuO 8.3 8.3 83.4
reacted samples that may affect the Emin measure-
ment.
It should be noted that for both TGA/DSC and
flash ignition experiments, we did not add NaClO4
to p-Si since it is difficult to prepare a homogeneous
p-Si/NaClO4 /m-Al/n-CuO mixture due to safety
concerns. For the combustion experiments below,
NaClO4 was added to effectively oxidize p-Si, but
the p-Si/NaClO4 composite was not directly mixed
with m-Al/n-CuO, but placed underneath.
2.4. Flame propagation in a semi-confined
microchannel
The qualitative effect of p-Si/NaClO4 addition
on the flame propagation of m-Al/n-CuO mixtures
was investigated in a semi-confined microchan-
nel. The semi-confined microchannel was made of
1 mm thick glass slides and have overall dimensions
of 5 mm (w) × 1 mm (h) × 25 mm (l) (Fig. 5a). Only
one end of the microchannel was open, where sam-
ples were ignited by an embedded nichrome (NiCr)
filament. The other enclosed sides were used to
prevent the tested materials from splattering away
during the flame propagation. Due to the sensitiv-
ity of p-Si/NaClO4 to mechanical impact, the sto-
ichiometric m-Al/n-CuO thermite mixtures were
not directly mixed with p-Si/NaClO4 , but they were
placed on top (Fig. 5). To be consistent, the ther-
mite mixtures were always placed on top of other
comparison substrates, including p-Si film on Si
wafers, and SiO2 /Si wafers (Fig. 5). The thickness
of the p-Si layer used for the flame propagation ex-
periments was 130 μm. The flame propagation pro-
cess inside the microchannel was recorded at 90,000
fps using a high-speed camera (Photron FAST-
CAM SA5) with a 100 mm macro lens.
2.5. Reaction progression measurement in
constant-volume pressure vessel
The effect of adding p-Si/NaClO4 compos-
ite on the combustion behavior of m-Al/n-CuO
thermite mixtures was quantified in a constant-
volume pressure vessel (volume: 13.5 cm3 ) filled
with ambient air for which the schematic setup is
shown in Fig. 1. Various control samples (Table 2,
Fig. 1b–d) were first placed in a crucible and then
mechanically agitated to have a uniform packing
density. The thermite samples were ignited by an
embedded NiCr filament at the bottom (Fig. 1b).
When p-Si/NaClO4 was part of the tested samples,
p-Si particles were impregnated with stoichiometric
amount of NaClO4 . Since not all NaClO4 will en-
ter into the pores of p-Si, some will remain outside
φ the p-Si particles. We cannot directly measure the
pore volume fill percentage due to the highly sensi-
tive nature of NaClO4 filled p-Si particles. We esti-
1 mate that about 6.5% of the pore volume of p-Si is
1
1
filled with the oxidizer according to previous gravi-
metric measurements conducted on NaClO4 filled

Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
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4 V.S. Parimi et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 000 (2016) 1–8

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic setup of the constant-volume pressure vessel experiment. The mixtures were placed in an alumina
crucible and ignited by NiCr filaments. The dynamic pressure and light emission were collected by a pressure transducer
and a photodiode, respectively. (b), (c), and (d) illustrate the sample configurations and the NiCr filament position when
testing m-Al/n-CuO, p-Si/NaClO4 , and m-Al/n-CuO over p-Si/NaClO4 , respectively.

Table 2
Composition of m-Al/n-CuO and p-Si/NaClO4 samples used for the pressure-vessel experiments. The Al,
CuO, and p-Si particle sizes are 3.0–4.5 μm, 50 nm, and < 45 μm, respectively.
Sample Mass (mg) φ (Al /CuO) Mass (mg) φ (p-Si/CuO) Total Mass (mg)
Al CuO p-Si NaClO4
1 3.7 16.3 1.0 – – – 20.0
2 – – – 1.2 2.6 1.0 3.8
3 3.7 16.3 1.0 1.2 2.6 1.0 23.8

p-Si films [32]. The NiCr filament was always
placed on top of the p-Si/NaClO4 mixture to avoid
unintentional ignition (Fig. 1c and d). The dynamic
pressure and light emission from combustion were
recorded by a pressure transducer (603B1, Kistler
Inc.) and a photodiode (PDA36A, Thorlabs Inc.),
respectively (Fig. 1a).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of p-Si addition on onset temperature of
micron-Al/nano-CuO thermite reaction
Figure 2a shows the baseline corrected TGA
and DSC traces (normalized by fuel mass) for
the stoichiometric m-Al (3.0–4.5 μm)/n-CuO
(∼50 nm) and p-Si/CuO (∼50 nm) mixtures
(Table 1). Both samples exhibit gradual small mass
loss since a small percentage of CuO decomposes
and generates gaseous O2 . The m-Al/n-CuO mix-
ture exhibits two exothermic peaks. One weak
exothermic peak is around 580 °C, below the melt-
ing temperature of Al (660 °C). The peak position
is similar to those of nano-thermites [36] because
the Al micron particles are not uniform in size
and probably contain small amount of nanopar-
ticles [37]. The dominant exothermic peak for
m-Al/n-CuO is at 956 °C, indicating that the onset
temperature of micron-sized Al is much higher
than that of nano-sized Al. In comparison, the
p-Si/CuO mixture also has two major exothermic
peaks but both are at much lower temperatures
(324 and 670 °C) than that of m-Al/n-CuO.
To test if the addition of p-Si can lower the onset
temperature for m-Al/n-CuO, the experimentally
measured heat flow trace for the stoichiomet-
ric fuel (p-Si and Al)/CuO mixture (Table 1) is
compared to the estimated one in Fig. 2b. The
estimated heat flow trace assumes that there is no
interaction between p-Si/CuO and m-Al/n-CuO

Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
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Fig. 2. (a) TGA and DSC traces for stoichiometric m-Al/n-CuO and p-Si/CuO, respectively. (b) The experimentally mea-
sured and estimated heat flow trace for an overall stoichiometric p-Si/m-Al/n-CuO mixture. The measured DSC trace
shows that p-Si lowers the onset temperature of the m-Al/n-CuO reaction. Sample details are listed in Table 1.

reactions, and it is calculated by the mass weighted
linear addition of individual p-Si/CuO and m-
Al/n-CuO mixtures (Fig. 2a). It should be noted
that the heat release from the Si–Al intermetallic
reaction is negligible here [38]. Figure 2b shows
that the onset temperature for the exothermic peak
related to m-Al and n-CuO reaction is lower for
the measured case (804 °C) in comparison to the
estimated onset temperature (873 °C). The lowered
onset temperature suggests that the addition of p-
Si facilitates the initiation of the reaction between
m-Al and n-CuO particles.
3.2. Effect of p-Si addition on flash ignition of
micron-Al/nano-CuO mixtures
The above TGA/DSC experiments are nor-
mally considered as lower heating rate conditions
(< 100 K/min). Many practical applications expose
thermites to much higher heating rates, and the
heating rate could greatly affect the ignition behav-
ior of thermites. Next, we further investigated the
effect of p-Si addition on the ignition properties
of m-Al/n-CuO under high heating rate conditions
(∼103 –106 K/s) in an Xe flash ignition experiment
[30,39,40]. Figure 3 illustrates the flash ignition and
burning behaviors of m-Al/n-CuO, p-Si/n-CuO,
p-Si, and p-Si/m-Al/n-CuO mixture (20% p-Si by
mass) when exposed to the same aerial Xe flash
energy intensity (2.15 J/cm2 ). The stoichiometric
m-Al/n-CuO mixture cannot be ignited with this
flash energy and it was only dispersed a little due
to the photothermal heating effect (Fig. 3a). The
stoichiometric p-Si/n-CuO mixture can be ignited
by the flash. However, the reaction is quite mild
(Fig. 3b) as the final product is still black, not
red, which indicates that only a small percentage
of CuO is converted to Cu. In contrast, when
p-Si is placed in ambient air without CuO, it can
be ignited by flash and also burns much more
violently (Fig. 3c). The reason is that air is a more
effective oxidizer for p-Si than CuO because air
can penetrate into the pores of p-Si and provides
oxygen more readily than CuO. Finally, when
20% p-Si (by mass) is added to the stoichiometric
m-Al/n-CuO mixture, the mixture can be easily
ignited by Xe flash with the most vigorous burn-
ing (Fig. 3d). In addition, the product is reddish
(Fig. 3d) indicating that large amount of CuO is
reduced to Cu. Hence, the addition of p-Si has
successfully triggered the ignition of m-Al/n-CuO
from the heat release from the p-Si burning in air.
Next, we further quantify the amount of p-
Si addition on the minimum flash energy of sto-
ichiometric m-Al/n-CuO mixture. Figure 4 plots
the minimal areal ignition energy as a function
of the p-Si mass fraction in the p-Si/m-Al/n-CuO
mixture. Without p-Si addition, the m-Al/n-CuO
mixture cannot be ignited with our current Xe flash
tube. The minimal ignition energy (Emin ) quickly
decreases when a small amount of p-Si is added.
Emin levels off when more than 30% p-Si is added,
indicating that p-Si controls the ignition behavior
at such high concentration as expected. Those flash
ignition results show that the ignition enhancement
effect by p-Si addition is also applicable at high
heating rate conditions.
3.3. Effect of p-Si addition on the flame
propagation of micron-Al/nano-CuO mixture
The above DSC and flash ignition results show
that p-Si addition effectively facilitates the igni-
tion of m-Al/n-CuO thermite. Next, we investigate
the effect of p-Si addition on the flame propaga-
tion behavior of m-Al/n-CuO in a microchannel
(Fig. 5a). Due to the sensitivity of p-Si/NaClO4
to mechanical mixing, it is not directly mixed with

Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
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Fig. 3. Optical images of (a) m-Al/n-CuO (φ = 1), (b) p-Si/CuO (φ = 1), (c) p-Si, and (d) p-Si/m-Al/n-CuO (p-Si: 20% by
mass, m-Al/n-CuO with φ = 1). The total sample mass in each case is about 5 mg.

and its reaction front quickly propagates through

underneath m-Al/n-CuO. The heat and hot gas re-
leased by p-Si/NaClO4 ignite the above m-Al/n-
CuO, leading to its abrupt burning. In compari-
son from the SiO2 section, when the flame propa-
gates to the section of p-Si without NaClO4 , the
flame front does not show significant changes (Fig.
5c). Similar behaviors were observed for m-Al/n-
CuO mixtures of different packing densities. These
results suggest that the flame propagation speed
of m-Al/n-CuO can be significantly accelerated by
adding p-Si/NaClO4 mixture in physical contact
since p-Si/NaClO4 is easier to ignite and propagates
faster.

3.4. Effect of p-Si/NaClO4 addition on combustion

Fig. 4. Minimum areal flash ignition energy for p-Si/m-
Al/n-CuO mixtures (∼5 mg) as a function of p-Si particle
mass fraction.
m-Al/n-CuO but placed underneath for flame prop-
agation study. For consistency, m-Al/n-CuO mix-
tures are also placed on top of other control sub-
strates (e.g., SiO2 and p-Si) for comparison (Fig. 5).
The flame propagation speed of thermites is known
to be sensitive to the powder packing density [41].
Since the packing density of m-Al/n-CuO is nearly
constant on the same substrate, we only compare its
flame propagation behavior on the same substrate
with two different sections: SiO2 /p-Si filled with
NaClO4 (Fig. 5b) and SiO2 /p-Si (Fig. 5c). For both
cases, the m-Al/n-CuO mixtures were ignited over
the SiO2 section. While the flame is propagating on
SiO2 , there is a clear flame front with faster speed
in the center of the channel. The burning of the
thermite is mild and steady. When the flame propa-
gates onto the p-Si filled with NaClO4 section, the
flame abruptly sets the remaining thermite to re-
act instantaneously (Fig. 5b, 4 ms). It is likely be-
cause the flame ignites the underneath p-Si/NaClO4
of micron-Al/nano-CuO mixtures
The effect of adding p-Si/NaClO4 on the com-
bustion properties of m-Al/n-CuO is quantitatively
analyzed in the constant-volume pressure vessel ex-
periment (Fig. 1). The detailed sample mass and
compositions are listed in Table 2 and their re-
spective dynamic pressure and light emission are
shown in Fig. 6. Time zero is set as the time when
a small pressure increase (∼0.3 atm) is observed for
the chamber pressure to remove the impact of dif-
ferent ignition delays. The P-t trace (Fig. 6a) for
such a constant-volume vessel shows the accumu-
lative effect of heat release, and the light emission
trace (Fig. 6b) can be regarded as proportional to
the instantaneous reaction rate.
First, the pressure of p-Si/NaClO4 peaks im-
mediately after ignition and its light emission has
a narrow and sharp peak for the first 0.4 ms.
In comparison, the pressure of m-Al/n-CuO rises
much slower and its light emission shows much
broader and milder peaks. This confirms that p-Si/
NaClO4 reacts much faster than m-Al/n-CuO.
Second, we study the effect of p-Si/NaClO4 addi-
tion on the combustion of m-Al/n-CuO by placing
p-Si/NaClO4 underneath (Fig. 1d). The measured

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Fig. 5. (a) Schematic of the semi-confined glass mi-
crochannel for the flame propagation study. The m-Al/n-
CuO is ignited at the open end and flame propagates
downstream. High speed images of flame propagation of
m-Al/n-CuO on segmented substrates: (b) SiO2 /p-Si with
NaClO4 ; and (c) SiO2 /p-Si. The flame speed for the m-
Al/n-CuO mixture is about 6.7 m/s over the SiO2 section
and ∼150 m/s over the p-Si/NaClO4 section. The flame
propagation of p-Si/NaClO4 without the m-Al/n-CuO
mixture on top is about 4.1–4.3 m/s.
pressure and light emission traces are compared to
the estimated ones in Fig. 6a and b. The estimation
traces were calculated by PAl/CuO (t) + Pp-Si/NaClO4 (t)
– Pbaseline and VAl/CuO (t) + Vp-Si/NaClO4 (t) – Vbaseline ,
respectively, for which it assumes no interaction be-
tween p-Si/NaClO4 and m-Al/n-CuO. Clearly, the
measured pressure and light emission traces for the
mixture shows much earlier, higher and sharper
pressure rise and light emission than those of the
estimated ones. This suggests that the presence
of p-Si/NaClO4 renders m-Al/n-CuO react much
faster and more efficiently.
Please cite this article as: V.S. Parimi et al., Enhancing ignition and combustion of micron-
sized aluminum by adding porous silicon, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2016),
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[m;July 23, 2016;17:5]
7
Finally, we quantify the acceleration effect of p-
Si/NaClO4 addition by defining a reaction progress
parameter α(t),
∫t0 Vphotodiode (t )dt
α(t ) = , (1)
∫∞
0 Vphotodiode (t )dt
where Vphotodiode (t) is the photodiode signal mea-
sured at time t. The definition of α(t) assumes that
the photodiode response is proportional to the in-
stantaneous reaction rate, and hence α(t) repre-
sents the relative degree of reaction completion.
The pressure increase for the thermite mixtures is
caused by both heat release from thermite reactions
and decomposition of n-CuO particles [42], so only
the photodiode signal is used to evaluate the re-
action. As shown in Fig. 6c, the time to achieve
about 80% of reaction completion (α = 0.8) for p-
Si/NaClO4 and m-Al/n-CuO are 0.9 and 3.1 ms,
respectively, confirming that p-Si/NaClO4 reacts
much faster. The measured time for α = 0.8 for
the m-Al/n-CuO + p-Si/NaClO4 mixture is 2.1 ms,
which is shorted than the estimated 3.1 ms using the
estimated photodiode trace in Fig. 6b. In addition,
the α(t) curve for the m-Al/n-CuO + p-Si/NaClO4
mixture shows a two-stage behavior with a sharp
increase before 0.2 ms followed by a much slower
increase afterward. This behavior suggests that p-
Si/NaClO4 rapidly reacts first and releases heat that
accelerates the reaction of m-Al/n-CuO. In another
words, m-Al/n-CuO burns faster because it burns at
elevated ambient temperature and pressure due to
the reaction of p-Si/NaClO4 .
4. Conclusions
In summary, this work is the first to investigate
the effect of p-Si addition on the ignition and com-
bustion characteristics of m-Al/n-CuO thermites.
We consistently observed that the addition of p-
Si facilitates both ignition and combustion of m-
Al/n-CuO thermites over a wide range of experi-
mental conditions, ranging from slow heating rate
conditions in TGA/DSC, large heating rate con-
ditions in Xe flash ignition, flame propagation in
microchannels, to constant-volume pressure ves-
sel experiments. Those enhancement effects are at-
tributed to the easy ignition and fast burning prop-
erties of p-Si, which elevates the ambient temper-
ature and/or pressure and hence accelerates the ig-
nition and combustion of m-Al/n-CuO. We believe
that this work provides a viable pathway toward en-
hancing the ignition and combustion properties of
micron-sized Al particles by adding p-Si.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Office of Naval
Research under agreement number N00014-15-1-
2028 and Army Research Office under agreement
number W911NF-14-1-0271.
JID: PROCI
ARTICLE IN PRESS
8 V.S. Parimi et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 000 (2016) 1–8
Fig. 6. (a) Pressure versus time, (b) light emission versus time, and (c) reaction progress parameter α versus time for m-Al/n-
CuO, p-Si/NaClO4 , and m-Al/n-CuO with p-Si/NaClO4 mixtures. The estimated mixture traces are obtained by summing
the responses from m-Al/n-CuO and p-Si/NaClO4 samples.
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