(65f) Use of Adiabatic Calorimetry and Aging Test for Safe Storage Study of Hydroxylamine Nitrate

Since 1970s hydroxylamine nitrate (HAN) has been involved in several incidents at several military facilities including a major explosion at the Plutonium Reclamation Facility at Hanford in 1997. Following these incidents extensive research on HAN has been conducted at MKOPSC and other institutes. However, most of these research efforts were mainly focused on understanding the unstable behaviors or combustion behavior of HAN.

On-line monitoring, safe storage and handling criteria of HAN are still far from well studied and developed. In the current work, aging test and adiabatic calorimetry, inverse-based fitting methods are combined to elucidate the aging and storage behaviors of HAN. Aqueous solutions of HAN, 18 mass%, have been subjected to aging tests and adiabatic decomposition test. The experimental data are used to elucidate and deduce the mass loss kinetics parameters. These data could be used to monitor the storage behavior of HAN.