Releasing chemical energy in spatially programmed ferroelectrics

Abstract

Chemical energy ferroelectrics are generally solid macromolecules showing spontaneous polarization and chemical bonding energy. These materials still suffer drawbacks, including the limited control of energy release rate, and thermal decomposition energy well below total chemical energy. To overcome these drawbacks, we report the integrated molecular ferroelectric and energetic material from machine learning-directed additive manufacturing coupled with the ice-templating assembly. The resultant aligned porous architecture shows a low density of 0.35 g cm−3, polarization-controlled energy release, and an anisotropic thermal conductivity ratio of 15. Thermal analysis suggests that the chlorine radicals react with macromolecules enabling a large exothermic enthalpy of reaction (6180 kJ kg−1). In addition, the estimated detonation velocity of molecular ferroelectrics can be tuned from 6.69 ± 0.21 to 7.79 ± 0.25 km s−1 by switching the polarization state. These results provide a pathway toward spatially programmed energetic ferroelectrics for controlled energy release rates.

Interpretable-machine-learning-guided discovery of dominant intrinsic factors of sensitivity of high explosives

“…21 The past few years have witnessed the unprecedented rapid development of fast performance prediction and chemical reaction analysis by the interaction of nanosecond pulsed laser interaction with small dose energetic materials on the microgram to milligram scale. Gottfried et al came up with a laboratory-scale method for estimating the detonation velocity of explosives 22,23 and the release of chemical energy in spatially programmed ferroelectrics 24 from laser-induced shock waves. Our prior work 25,26 has proved that effective radiation of laser-induced plasma is closely related to the sensitivity of HEs, and then naturally proposes a quantitative analysis of sensitivity based on LIPS spectra.…”

Solid–Liquid Crystal Biphasic Ferroelectrics with Tunable Biferroelectricity

“…Ferroelectricity, which refers to a functional property that can switch spontaneous polarization under an external electric field, [1] has attracted a long period of academic interest since its first discovery in 1920 in solid crystal Rochelle salt. [2] During its century-long history, ferroelectricity has been found in a large number of crystalline and semi-crystalline solid materials including inorganic crystals and ceramics, [3,4] organic crystals, [5][6][7][8] hybrids, [9][10][11][12][13] and polymers. [14,15] These ferroelectric solids play crucial roles in numerous technical applications such as memories, transducers, capacitors, and sensors.…”

Ferroelectric Crystals of Globular Molecules: Cambridge Structural Database Mining and Computational Assessment

“…Ferroelectric molecular crystals are potential alternatives to conventional inorganic ferroelectrics. – These materials can be synthesized with low-cost and low-energy methods such as coprecipitation, slow evaporation, spin coating, and 3D printing. – Furthermore, the abundance of available molecular species allows for tailoring of the properties of molecular crystals while eliminating the need for scarce or toxic elements. The ferroelectric molecular crystals can be formed solely through van der Waals and/or hydrogen bonding, and such systems are referred to as molecular crystals.…”