A simple and flexible thin film evaporating device for energetic materials

Abstract

A thin film evaporation device has been developed to prepare energetic materials at atmospheric pressure. The device is intuitive, simple, and easy to manipulate. The application of the device is demonstrated for pentaerythritol tetranitrate but can be extended to other explosives and organic materials that have low saturation pressures.

Progress in Additive Manufacturing of Energetic Materials: Creating the Reactive Microstructures with High Potential of Applications

“…Weeks et al [103] reported a simple apparatus for thermal vapor deposition under atmospheric pressure instead of vacuum, which is applicable to substances such as PETN. A very sensitive quartz crystal microbalance was used to monitor the deposition process, and a film growth rate as low as 0.1 Å s À 1 was measured.…”

Embossing of organic thin films using a surfactant assisted lift-off technique

“…The roughness of these substrates was measured using an atomic force microscope (AFM), and all data were below 5 nm rms. Organic thin films were deposited by thermal evaporation at atmospheric pressure [41], high vacuum [42], or with spin coating [7]. Organic thin film thicknesses ranged from 30 nm to 3 lm.…”

Evaluation of Non-Contact Sampling and Detection of Explosives using Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves

“…Great efforts have been made to generate consistent vapors of various compounds for landmine determination [215], environmental chemical monitoring [216], explosives detection [217][218][219][220] and sensor calibration [221] throughout the past decades. One technique such as Controlled Odor Mimic Permeation Systems (COMPS) uses a thin plastic film to release vapors generated from the solid compounds into the headspace at a fixed rate [11,222].…”