Peculiarity for the stability of three different emulsion explosives

Abstract

An investigation was performed into the stability of three emulsion explosives, namely bulk, packaged and powdery emulsion explosive. The dynamic stability is crucial for bulk emulsion explosive, and the experimental results show that it will possibly achieve both good dynamic stability and fluidity when polyisobutene succinic anhydride (PIBSA) based emulsifiers, such as PIBSA-DTEA, PIBSA-TEA and PIBSA-STEA etc, used alone in preparing explosive. Opposite with that, the long-term storage stability is much more important for packaged emulsion explosive. In several PIBSA based emulsifiers, polyisobutene succinimide (PIBSI) is more suitable for improving the stability of packaged emulsion explosive. Moreover, the stability also can be improved through rising the toughness of oil film, like adding a certain amount of microcrystalline wax. The caking of ammonium nitrate (AN) crystals with time is the key reason, which decreasing the stability of powdery emulsion explosive. The caking phenomenon will be weakened with the addition of rosin because the softened rosin can allow the repair of damaged oil film and prevent AN crystals breaking the oil film. Besides that, adding potassium nitrate to AN solution or a certain amount of talcum powder also can effectively improve the stability.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Emulsion explosive
• emulsion explosive matrix
• stability
• emulsifier
• droplet size

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.51604155), Foundation of the Jiangsu Education Committee (20KJB150006), School Project of Nanjing Xiaozhuang University (2019NXY19), Major Project of Nanjing Institute of Technology Innovation Fund (CKJA202001) and Tiandi Technology Co., Ltd. Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fund (2020-TD-QN013), study on the new synthesis technology of sorbitol emulsifier for emulsion explosive) for financial support. The present work was supported by the outstanding scientific and technological innovation team in colleges and universities of Jiangsu province.