Ammonium Dinitramide Cocrystals for Improved Performance and Environmental Stability
Abstract
The progress of a broad range of military technologies relies on the predictable and high performance of energetic materials including explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics. In the case of propellants the materials play a critical role in both defensive and offensive technologies as well as in payload delivery to space. Among the technologies employed, solid rocket motors are areliable and cost-effective solution. They are, however, not without limitations. Most solid rocket motors rely on ammonium perchlorate as the oxidizer which can lead to environmental contamination (both atmospheric and groundwater) as well as combustion products that easily detected during flight, making stealth operation challenging. There is, therefore, considerable interest and effort being directed at developing alternative technologies. Among the mostpromising of these is using ammonium dinitramide (ADN) as an energetic oxidizer which overcomes some of the above limitations while having the potential to improve upon the already good performance of ammonium perchlorate.ADN has yet to see broad application in the military due, in part, to limitations related to processing and thermal stability. Though chemical alteration of ADN is difficult to envisage as an approach to overcome such problems, cocrystal formation offers a promising route. Cocrystals are the technical approached being pursued here. The cocrystallization approach aims to modify theproperties of compounds by discovering new solid state arrangements wherein two or more molecules combine within a crystal. In the case of ADN no cocrystals are known and so discovery forms the first stage of the proposed research. Properties of new cocrystals will be characterizedand potential for their use as new energetic materials assessed through a combination of experiment and theory. The work contributes to the production of more environmentally palatable formulations for producing high performance propellants for military and civilian applications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 07, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912086
Entities
People
- Adam J. Matzger
Organizations
- Board of Regents of the University of Michigan
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy