Theoretical study of the thermodynamic and burning properties of oxygen-rich hydrazine derivatives--green and powerful oxidants for energetic materials.

A series of no-chlorine and oxygen-rich hydrazine derivatives (hydrazine modified with -NO₂ and NO₃(-) groups) was designed and optimized to obtain molecular geometries and electronic structures at density functional theory-B3PW91/6-311++G(3df,3pd) level. Some important properties such as bond dissociation enthalpy, density, natural bond orbitals, thermodynamic parameters, molecular orbital energy and burning rate were then calculated. The simulation results revealed that these compounds exhibit excellent performance, with significant superiority over traditional oxidants found in propellants.

Dispersion and current-voltage characteristics of helical polyacetylene single fibers.

To study the transport properties of individual helical polyacetylene (PA) fibers, we developed a method to extract a single fiber from tightly entangled ropes of helical PA bulk film. After a few minutes of sonication of a piece of helical PA bulk film in an organic solution containing surfactant, a droplet of solution is deposited on the pre-pattened electrode under argon atmosphere. AFM images show that extracted helical PA fibers are typically 10 mum in length and 100-200 nm in diameter.