(652c) Synthesis and Characterization of Nanostructured Pyrophoric Materials

Pyrotechnic materials are of high interest to the DoD for a variety of applications, including countermeasure flares, training rounds, and tracers. Recently, significant efforts have been undertaken to exploit the pyrophoricity of metallic nanostructures, which are ideal because of their environmentally benign reaction products.  While many such pyrophoric materials are processed via bottom-up processing (e.g. inert gas condensation) such techniques can be relatively expensive.  Here, we have taken a top-down approach to synthesizing novel pyrophoric pyrotechnic materials for DoD applications. The top-down approach employs high energy milling of binary, ternary, and quaternary alloys comprised of aluminum, iron, titanium, and magnesium. The high surface area (and resultant nanostructured lamellae) of these milled materials exhibited pyrophoricity.  The influence of processing parameters and chemical composition on the combustion properties of these materials will be presented. In addition, the ignitability and sensitivity of these materials will be discussed along with live fire testing results.