Energetic materials are materials that have both a fuel and an oxidizer that could release a large amount of energy or gas upon ignition. Nano-energetic materials can be advantageous due to their enhanced specific surface area and tunable properties to improve the reaction rate at an acceptable level of safety. Nano-energetic materials can be utilized in a wide variety of applications, but have found its most common use in defense settings.
Nonthermal plasma synthesis can be employed to synthesize nano-energetic materials for these applications. By tuning processing parameters, such as precursor flow rates and applied powers, the nanomaterial properties can be tuned as well. The Kortshagen Group has focused on synthesizing high-quality nano-energetic materials through gas-phase approaches.