Nanoscopy

Nanostructuring of materials is becoming increasingly important in all scientific and industrial fields. Explosives, priming formulations, propellants whether used in small or in very larges amounts, are fully concerned. Explosives, thermite mixtures, propellants and boosters and their combinations were nanostructured to enhance the performances of existing micronsized products and often in a disruptive way. Higher performances, means higher combustion kinetics with enhanced power density, but also the possibility to decrease the sensitivity without decreasing the priming power. On the other hand, the use of nanomaterials allows designing smart energetic materials by adjusting the structures of these materials at nanoscale. For instance, the high potential of nano-engineering of energetic materials has led to the development of hybrid energetic nanomaterials, which are promising candidates to replace primary explosives containing heavy metals. The future energetic materials used in systems such as explosive charges, detonators or propellants will have a function “by design”. They will have all at once higher performances and lower impact on environment than conventional energetic materials. The advances in the field of nanomaterial continuous engineering make it now possible not only to design miniaturized detonating systems, but also to develop larger energetic charges and nanostructured propellants as the production capacity is increased thanks to up-scaled facilities. An example of continuous nanostructuring method is the Spray Flash Evaporation (SFE) process developed at NS3E laboratory to produce nanostructured energetic materials.