This paper deals with the reaction of dense Metastable Intermolecular Composite (MIC) materials. The energy density of MIC nanocomposite materials is much higher than that of conventional energetic materials. The reaction of a multilayer thin film of aluminum and copper oxide has been studied by varying the substrate material and thicknesses, to vary the heat loss during the reaction of the MIC material. The in-plane speed of propagation of the reaction was experimentally determined using a time of-flight technique. The experiment shows that the reaction is completely quenched for a silicon substrate having an intervening silica layer of less than 200 nm. The speed of reaction seems to be constant at 40 m/s for silica layers with thickness greater than 1 μm. Different substrate material such as glass was also used. A numerical analysis of the thermal transport from the reacting film shows that the temperature profiles become self similar for substrate thicknesses larger than 1 μm., the maximum temperature stays constant for both silica and composite silica/silicon substrates, showing the effectiveness of the composite substrates to control the heat lost from the reaction, both experimentally and numerically
