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.