New pellet-making method points to safer, more predictable high-explosive manufacturing

US modernizes high-explosive manufacturing with pharma technique

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have modernized high-explosive (HE) manufacturing by adapting extrusion-spheronization. It is a quality-controlled technique borrowed from the pharmaceutical industry for producing plastic-bonded high explosives (PBXs). PBX manufacturing uses a legacy process called slurry coating. In this process, explosive crystals are mixed with a polymer binder to form small granules, known as pril…

New pellet-making method points to safer, more predictable high-explosive manufacturing

For decades, manufacturing plastic-bonded high explosives, or PBXs, has relied on legacy processes like slurry coating. In this method, explosive crystals are mixed with a binder, a polymer that helps hold the material together, to form small granules called prills. Those prills are then pressed into dense explosive parts.