(164e) Scale-up of Primary Explosives Using Reaction Engineering Tools

Scale-up is a relative term to the material being produced. In some cases scale-up challenges may include heat and mass transfer. In other cases the scale-up challenges may include the safety of the equipment, facility and personnel. Primary explosives are the most sensitive explosives produced and require great care with respect to processing and handling. These materials are not forgiving and typically detonate if insulted through stimuli such as friction, impact, electrostatic discharge or heat. Scaling up these types of explosives requires a 'hands-off' approach while still being able to acquire all the necessary chemical engineering data for safe processing that produces a high quality product. Primary explosives are first synthesized by the process chemist and eventually transitioned to the chemical engineer. This presentation focuses on how we utilized a combination of in-situ and off-line tools to develop and transfer a 'chemical process' to a plant environment for a primary explosive. The primary explosive was produced in multi-gram quantities.