Political development in recent years has resulted in a strong increase in munitions requiring delaboration. The propelling charge powder and explosives obtained can be disposed of by burning or detonating without further treatment. However, the resulting environmental impact through the formation of larger quantities of carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) and nitric oxides (NO.sub.X), dust and noise or the costs for their reduction, are considerable. In order to increase the ecologically beneficial aspects and the economy of the disposal of delaborated explosives, a number of processes have been suggested whose aim is the utilization of at least some explosive material components.
In DE 41 38 733 A1 for instance it is suggested to dissolve delaboration TNT in a solvent and to add this solvent to a fuel. In this way the TNT is being utilized but ultimately still combusted with the resulting disadvantages.
Combustion is also provided for according to DE 42 23 415 C1. The explosive material is dissolved in a liquid, combustible solvent, insoluble foreign materials are removed from the solution and the cleaned, saturated solution finally fed into a combustion chamber.
A process and a device are known from DE 42 37 580 C1 which can be used to reduce the wax content of an explosive material and its grain size. The finely crystalline explosive material can be used for the manufacture of propelling charge powders or permissible explosives. The wax-enriched residue can also be utilized for the manufacture of an explosive by combining it with porous ammonium nitrate prills. The separation into individual components required with this process and the recrystallization of the explosive material however require considerable expenditure in terms of machines and time.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds