Effect and Mechanism of NH₄H₂PO₄/Montmorillonite Composite Powder on Al-Mg Alloy Dust Explosion

ABSTRACT

The explosion of energetic metal dusts represents a major threat to the machining industry. It is therefore crucial to develop inexpensive, high-performance explosion inhibitors. For better protection of production, by using solvent-antisolvent approach, we prepare a uniquely clustered composite inhibitor by combining a natural clay mineral – Montmorillonite. In a 20-L spherical explosion apparatus and a vertical combustion tube, our examination shows that adding 80 wt% NH₄H₂PO₄/Montmorillonite composite powder inhibitor can fully inhibit the explosion of Al-Mg alloy dust; adding 60 wt% composite powder inhibitor can inhibit the flame propagation. And that our new composite powder inhibitor outperforms pure monomer powder inhibitors. Through XRD, XPS, etc analysis, we gain a deeper insight into the inhibitory mechanism of NH₄H₂PO₄/Montmorillonite. On the one hand, the decomposition of NH₄H₂PO₄ and the resulting products combine to inhibit reaction; on the other hand, Montmorillonite contains plenty of voids that not only limits the propagation of flames, but also well absorbs the products generated from explosion reaction. Through research and experiments, we obtain a cheap, environmentally friendly and efficient composite dust explosion-proofing agent, which provides new ideas for the design of dust explosion-proofing materials and broadens the application prospects of natural clay minerals as dust explosion-proofing agents.

KEYWORDS:

• Al-mg alloy dust explosion
• NH₄H₂PO₄/Montmorillonite composite
• blast inhibitor
• inhibition mechanism

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the the Natural Science Foundation of China (52074066), National Key Research and Development Plan (2021YFC3001300).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI)