Environmentally Benign Stab Detonators
The coupling of energetic metallic multilayers (a.k.a. flash metal) with energetic sol-gel synthesis and processing is an entirely new approach to forming energetic devices for several DoD and DOE needs. They are also practical and commercially viable manufacturing techniques. Improved occupational safety and health, performance, reliability, reproducibility, and environmentally acceptable processing can be achieved using these methodologies and materials. The development and fielding of this technology will enhance mission readiness and reduce the costs, environmental risks and the necessity of resolving environmental concerns related to maintaining military readiness while simultaneously enhancing safety and health. Without sacrificing current performance, we will formulate new impact initiated device (IID) compositions to replace materials from the current composition that pose significant environmental, health, and safety problems associated with functions such as synthesis, material receipt, storage, handling, processing into the composition, reaction products from testing, and safe disposal. To do this, we will advance the use of nanocomposite preparation via the use of multilayer flash metal and sol-gel technologies and apply it to new small IIDs. This work will also serve to demonstrate that these technologies and resultant materials are relevant and practical to a variety of energetic needs of DoD and DOE. The goal will be to produce an IID whose composition is acceptable by OSHA, EPA, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Recovery Act, etc. standards, without sacrificing current performance. The development of environmentally benign stab detonators and igniters will result in the removal of hazardous and toxic components associated with their manufacturing, handling, and use. This will lead to improved worker safety during manufacturing as well as reduced exposure of Service personnel during their storage and or use in operations. The implementation of energetic sol-gel coated metallic multilayers, as new small IIDs will result in dramatically reduced environmental risks and improved worker and user safety risks without any sacrifice in the performance of the device. The proposed effort is designed to field an IID that is free of toxic (e.g., tetrazene) and heavy metal constituents (e.g., lead styphnate, lead azide, barium nitrate, and antimony sulfides) present in the NOL-130 initiating mixture and in the lead azide transfer charge of current stab detonators. The preferred materials for this project are nanocomposites consisting of thin foils of metallic multilayers, composed of nanometer thick regions of different metals, coated with a sol-gel derived energetic material. The favored metals for the multilayers will be main-group and early transition metals such as, but not limited to, boron, aluminum, silicon, titanium, zirconium, and nickel. Candidate sol-gel energetic materials include iron (III) oxide/aluminum nanocomposites. It should be noted that more traditional materials than sol-gel might also be used with the flash metals. The metallic multilayers undergo an exothermic transition to a more stable intermetallic alloy with the appropriate mechanical or thermal stimulus. This exothermic transition has sufficient output energy to initiate the more energy dense sol-gel energetic material, or other candidate materials. All of the proposed initiation mix materials and their reaction by products have low toxicity, are safe to handle and dispose of, and provide much less environmental and health concerns than the current composition. We anticipate that the technology and materials proposed here will be produced successfully in production scale with very competitive costs with existing IIDs, when amortized over the production lifetime. The sol-gel process is well known and used extensively in industry for coatings applications. All of the proposed feedstock components are mass-produced and have relatively low costs. The multilayer deposition equipment is commercially available and the technology is widely used in the coating of semiconductor devices, food storage containers, and reflective windows. In addition, both the sol-gel and multilayer technologies are very versatile. A variety of synthesis and processing variables can be tuned to change material properties such as particle or layer size or thickness, porosity, and composition can lead to materials with different properties. Using these techniques IIDs with optimized sensitivity, energy output, processing, and aging characteristics can be produced that are not as easily accessible using other nanotechnologies, in particular the use of ultra-fine grain powders. This effort attempts to demonstrate that environmentally acceptable energetic sol-gel coated flash metal multilayer nanocomposites can be used to replace current impact initiated devices (IIDs), which have hazardous and toxic components.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 929170
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-TR-222711; TRN: US200814%%88
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
ALUMINIUM
ANTIMONY SULFIDES
BARIUM NITRATES
CLEAN AIR ACTS
CLEAN WATER ACTS
DETONATORS
HEAVY METALS
MANUFACTURING
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY
PERFORMANCE
PROCESSING
RESOURCE RECOVERY ACTS
SAFETY
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SOL-GEL PROCESS
STORAGE
SYNTHESIS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
US EPA
US OSHA