Nano-aluminium particles of around 45 nm mean size has been produced by the electrical wire explosion technique in a chamber where 8 wires are sequentially exploded by application of high voltage in an argon atmosphere. These particles are much smaller than the ultra-fine aluminium used in solid propellants reported in recent times. The particles are characterized in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The particles are used instead of normal-sized aluminium (15 ìm) in ammonium perchlorate (AP)-based composite solid propellants, and their burning rates are compared with corresponding non-aluminized and normal-aluminized propellants in the 1-12 MPa pressure range. Special formulations which exhibited plateau burning rate trends in the baseline non-aluminized versions have been considered to examine the effect of addition of nano-aluminium on the plateau burning rate trends. The results indicate that nano-aluminized propellants yield a 50-100% increase in burning rates over non-aluminized ones, and exhibit appreciably low pressure-exponents of burning rate in the high-pressure range, regardless of the trends exhibited by their non-aluminized and normal-aluminized counterparts. This implies that the nano-aluminized propellant burning rates are controlled by near-surface heat release of ignited nano-Al particles, which in turn undergo diffusion-limited combustion in the high pressure range. © 2007 Combustion Institute. All Rights Reserved.