Nanofibers for Broadband Spectral Obscurant Applications

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been developing infrared obscurant technology that could provide over an order of magnitude improvement over current IR obscurant materials. On an Army Phase II contract with the COR at ECBC completed in June 2016, PSI has produced several anisotropic obscurants with high extinction in the visible and infrared (IR) wavelengths. We compared the performance of several versions of our composite nanofibers with conventional brass flake IR obscurants and found more than 5X improvement in performance. This subsequent Phase II proposed effort continues the development effort and will focus on the optimization of obscurant composition and aspect ratio, copper deposition, pilot scale production and obscurant aerosol cloud formation and persistence. This proposed additional Phase II will allow development of the ideal IR obscurant particle with a tunable bandwidth and maturation of the technology to a higher TRL. The performance of the obscurant will exceed that of the currently fielded brass flake IR obscurants by at least an order of magnitude. We will work to densely pack and explosively and pneumatically disseminate the obscurant, measuring their Figure of Merit. This Subsequent Phase II is endorsed by ECBC, JPM Guardian, JPM Contamination Avoidance, DHS S+T and JSTO CBD.