METTLER TOLEDO
 

Energetics

Energetics

Addressing Challenges of Highly Energetic Materials Reaction and Crystallization

Challenges exist during the development and scale-up of highly energetic materials.  In addition to achieving the desired yield, purity, and particle size distribution, process safety challenges associated with explosive compounds must also be addressed.  The risks associated with process safety can be reduced or eliminated through the use of RC1e reaction calorimetry and in situ ReactIR Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) reaction monitoring and analysis.  RC1e reaction calorimeter and ReactIR are also enabling tools that quickly and efficiently improve synthesis routes to milligram or kilogram energetic material synthesis.

Once synthesized, crystallization is a critical separation and purification technique in the energetic materials industry.  End product qualities, such as burn rate, flow property, packing density, and formulation are closely link to crystal size distribution and crystal shape.  In addition, process efficiency - such as filtration, washing, and drying - are a function of the crystallization and endpoint particle size distribution (PSD).  Focused Beam Reflectance Measurement (FBRM) and Particle Vision Microscope are inline probe-based tools that track changes to particle dimension, shape, and count in real time without pulling samples.

Early Development Phase
  • Speed the development of new compounds
  • Quickly, but safely, provide new grams to kilograms of material
  • Rapidly establish cost effective synthetic routes

Design and Process Development
  • Speed the development of environmentally friendly, safe and robust processes
  • Build quality into the process: right first time scale-up
  • Support the development of continuous processes

Scale-up and Manufacturing
  • Eliminate batch failures
  • Ensure processes deliver higher yields with lower costs
  • Improve cycle time

Nieuws