A laboratory study of organic waste materials in emulsion explosives

Abstract. As part of research into the potential application of waste organic materials as additives to an emulsion matrix, the detonation properties of mixtures consisting of an emulsion matrix and various waste organic materials were investigated. This paper presents the results of laboratory tests on emulsion-based mixtures with the addition of ground polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a recyclable material and wood dust as a biodegradable natural organic material. An emulsion matrix sensitised with 2.4% glass microballoons was used in the experiments. The content of additives in the mixtures ranged up to 10%. The detonation properties of the aforementioned mixtures were determined both experimentally and by thermochemical calculations. The calculations were performed using the thermochemical code EXPLO5, while the experiments were conducted on samples with masses of up to 30 g. Both the experimental results and the calculations showed a decrease in detonation velocity with increasing amounts of organic waste material.