The NSTU NETI scientists have patented the technology to produce new materials with unique properties. Now diamond-like materials are grown under pressure; the new technology speeds up the process and yields substances with new properties that are assumed unique, e.g., significant hardness and high temperature resistance.
The device for creating diamond-like materials consists of a chamber, an explosive, an electric detonator, a wire, and a source material. The chamber is made in the form of two detachable parts that form a hollow cylinder when connected. "The chemical elements are included into the explosive. RDX, octogen, and other explosives can be used as the main explosive compotent. The explosion forms a compound which becomes the material with new unique properties. We will collect the explosion products to study them and understand in what area we can use them. Next, we will start using additional materials in experiments, but it is difficult to say which ones," says Anatoly Guskov, one of the developers of the device for obtaining diamond-like materials, head of the Gas Dynamic Pulse Devices Department, NSTU NETI.
The experiment consists in carrying out two explosions from different sides of the device chamber, with each side of the device having a shaped charge liner. The particles formed by the explosion on the sides will meet at high speed and at high pressure thus producing new materials. The NSTU NETI scientists will conduct the first experiments only with the explosives, and later other materials will be added to it. If additional materials are used in the experiment, the quality of the new materials may change.
The advantage of the technology is producing a bigger amount of useful particles and obtaining larger particles compared to the existing methods. However, the main task is to get fundamentally new diamond-like materials due to the explosion.
"Now diamond-like materials are grown under pressure. I also know that the soot from the explosive chambers walls is removed to extract microparticles with special properties from it. The composites that can occur under such extreme conditions are hard to predict. No one has done it. This is what experiments should establish", comments Anatoly Guskov
Scientists assume that the resulting materials will have unique properties: significant hardness and high temperature resistance.
Now the NSTU NETI scientists are looking for investments to conduct the experiment that will confirm the technology.