Combustion Synthesis for NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration- Moon Mars & Beyond

Combustion synthesis (CS) has been a popular research topic in the last 3decades. Motivation was due to attractive properties and possibilities comparedto conventional materials processing and synthesis techniques. Althoughit is a fairly simple process CS involves quite complex mechanismsthat occur simultaneously at rapidly changing high temperatures in the shortduration (few sec.) of the reaction. Gravity plays an important role in CS;therefore a deeper comprehension of the effects of gravity on non-equilibriummechanisms is needed. Similarly electric current activation presents severaladvantages by overcoming kinetic and thermodynamic limitations as wellas providing control over the properties of the reaction and final product.Present investigation utilized a chemical oven technique where the sample isembedded in a mixture of exothermic powder mixture. It focused on answeringessential questions by separating different mechanisms and understandingfundamental aspects of gravity and electric current in CS. Phenomena investigatedincluded reactive settling dissolution and precipitation and reactiveliquid metal flow. CS is considered as a potential technique with variousadvantages and applications in NASA's new vision for space exploration:Moon Mars and beyond!