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Environmentally Friendly Recycling of Hexal in Medium Caliber Ammunition in Industrial Scale
Author(s) -
Brogle Richard,
Rys Paul,
Rochat Etienne
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
propellants, explosives, pyrotechnics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.56
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1521-4087
pISSN - 0721-3115
DOI - 10.1002/1521-4087(200006)25:3<153::aid-prep153>3.0.co;2-8
Subject(s) - ammunition , process engineering , engineering , waste management , environmental science , materials science , metallurgy
The major task in the recycling of Hexal used in air defense ammunition is the secure, environmentally friendly and cost‐saving removal of the Hexal from the case. For this purpose a production plant was constructed, by which the Hexal can be extracted in one minute from four 35 mm grenades by means of drilling and application of high pressure water. The water treatment turned out to be the key step of this process. Increasingly severe environmental regulations force the industry to clean and reuse the water in the process. The diversity of the cleaning methods available is strongly limited by the explosive as material to be separated, by the broad particle size distribution, the high water throughput and the high purity request of the high‐pressure pump. The implemented separation process consists of a sedimentation and a filter part. This offers the advantage that there are no moving parts in the system and therefore the maintenance is relatively simple.