Disruptive Approaches to Energetic Material Synthesis: Nanosecond Cold Liquid Plasma (NCLP) for the Synthesis of New Nitrogen Polymers and Other Novel Nitrogen-based Materials
Abstract
The proposed research will explore the possibility and fundamental science of synthesis of nitrogen polymers and other novel nitrogen-based materials using fundamentally new phenomenon of nanosecond-pulsed cold liquid plasma (NCLP). Recently discovered new physical process of NCLP is a phenomenon of direct ionization of liquid phase by sharp high electric field pulses without heating. Proposed NCLP technique will potentially allow generation of metastable (or even stable at ambient conditions) new energetic materials which are currently unrecoverable. In our preliminary experiments, we have demonstrated the possibility of generating unknown materials as a result of ignition of NCLP directly in liquid nitrogen. As a result, a new material that exhibited distinct color change is generated with fast decomposition upon evaporation of remaining liquid. Strong chemical reactions with ambient air was also observed resulting in a strong smell. These exploratory experiments and observations allow us to suggest the possible formation of polymeric nitrogen compounds while utilizing the effects of liquid plasma although direct measurements and further characterization are still needed. We propose to study fundamental physio-chemical phenomena of NCLP generated directly in liquid phase nitrogen and synthesis of nitrogen polymers and other novel nitrogen-based materials. This project will be performed in close collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and is intended to answer the following fundamental questions: What are the materials that can be synthesized using nanosecond-pulsed plasma in liquid nitrogen? What are the physio-chemical conditions required for this synthesis? What are the chemical and physical characteristics of these materials? How can these materials be stabilized to be recovered at normal conditions? What are the scalability restrictions and how we would be able to mitigate them?
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 18, 2018
- Source ID
- W911NF1710597
Entities
People
- Danil Dobrynin
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Drexel University
- United States Army