Chemo-mechanical preparation and investigation of physio-chemical and thermo-sensitive properties of Octogen

ABSTRACT

Present work demonstrates the effect of in tandem application of chemo-mechanical methods on physio-chemical and thermo-sensitive properties of HMX. Solvent-antisolvent recrystallization produced γ-polymorph of HMX with mean diameter ~7 μm and ~8 μm when acetone and DMF were used as solvent respectively, whereas with γ-butyrolactone, β-HMX with larger particle size (mean diameter ~24 μm) was produced. Ultrasonication initially (1 h) resulted in increase in particle size but with increase in duration (24 h) particles size decreased to (~4 μm) whereas, ball milling resulted in decrease in average particle size to ~1 μm with β-polymorphic form with reduced impact sensitivity.

Graphical abstact

KEYWORDS:

• HMX
• ultrasonication
• ball milling
• residual solvent
• sensitivity

Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to Dr. Manjit Singh, Distinguished Scientist and Director TBRL, for his support to carry out the research work at TBRL. We are thankful to Dr. Amit L. Sharma, Senior Principal Scientist Optical Thin Film lab from CSIO, Chandigarh, for XRD analysis of our samples. We are also thankful to Dr. P. K Soni, Scientist ‘F‘, for his constant encouragement and to Mr. Mahesh Kumar, Scientist ‘D’ for helping in thermal analysis of samples. We also thank, Mr. Madan Singh, Tech B for his assistance in the lab work.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by TBRL-DRDO, Ministry of Defence, India.