## 3 Results and Discussion
### Thermodynamic Behavior Characterization  
To study the thermal behavior of Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E, the DSC-TGA instrument was used in this work to characterize the thermal reaction of Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E within an argon atmosphere. The DSC thermographs of NC, Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-M, Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E and MoO\({}_{3}\) within an argon atmosphere at the heating rate of 20 \({}^{\circ}\)C\(\cdot\)min\({}^{-1}\) are illustrated in Figure 5. There was only one fierce exothermic process initiated at \(\sim\)150 \({}^{\circ}\)C for NC (Figure 5a), and its exothermic peak temperature was 193.4 \({}^{\circ}\)C. During this process, the weight went through a cliff-like drop with a loss of 93.85%. Regarding the Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-M, the thermite reaction went through two exothermic processes starting from 400 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 460 \({}^{\circ}\)C, and the corresponding peak temperatures for them were 432.0 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 519.5 \({}^{\circ}\)C, respectively. After that, a small endothermic process with a peak temperature of 652 \({}^{\circ}\)C occurred, which was the melting process of extra Al particles. The melting point of MoO\({}_{3}\) was 795 \({}^{\circ}\)C, and its decomposition process began at a temperature larger than 650 \({}^{\circ}\)C (Figure 5d). Therefore, it could be concluded that the thermite reaction of Al nanoparticles and MoO\({}_{3}\) nanostrips was in a solid-solid phase, of which the reaction rate greatly depended on the transport distance between the oxidant and fuel. With the help of NC, Al and MoO\({}_{3}\) particles bonded into an integrated structure, which changed the original mass and heat transfer routes for both NC and Al/MoO\({}_{3}\). As shown in Figure 5c, the temperature of the exothermic peak of NC returned to 212.4 \({}^{\circ}\)C, 19 \({}^{\circ}\)C higher than that of pure NC. More surprisingly, there was only one prominent exothermic peak for Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E instead of the original two peaks for the thermite reaction. Additionally, the peak temperature was postponed to 534.5 \({}^{\circ}\)C which was 15 \({}^{\circ}\)C higher than the original peak temperature of the neat thermite reaction. It indicated that the heat accumulation pattern of NC in Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E was not as concentrated as pure NC. Along with the imported heat from the equipment, the heat generated from the decomposition would spread fast among the three components. Therefore, the decomposition rate of NC decreased with a weaker heat accumulation, which led to a delay in the fierce exothermic process. On the contrary, the heat release of the Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E thermite reaction became more focused than Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-M, for which the two exothermic peaks of the latter became one exothermic process of the former. This proved the high transport efficiency of mass and heat between the oxidant and fuel due to their tight contact. Figure 4: Elemental mappings of O, Al, Mo, C and N in Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E.  
To further elucidate the thermodynamic mechanism of Al/MoO\({}_{3}\)-E, DSC-TG measurements at five heating rates within an argon atmosphere were conducted. The DSC curves at five heating rates are displayed in Figure 6a, and the peak temperatures of the DSC curves under different heating rates are listed in Table 1. With those peak temperatures, the activation energy of each reaction stage could be calculated based on the Kissinger method. According to the Kissinger Equation (1), \(\ln\left(\frac{\beta}{T_{p}^{2}}\right)\) is linearly correlated to \(\frac{1}{T_{p}}\) with a slope of \(-\frac{E_{a}}{R}\) and an intercept of \(\ln\left(\frac{RA}{E_{a}}\right)\)[38]. Therefore, the activation energy \(E_{a}\) and frequency factor \(A\) could be acquired by linearly fitting a \(\ln\left(\frac{\beta}{T_{p}^{2}}\right)\) vs. \(\frac{1}{T_{p}}\) relationship based on the data points from the DSC curves.