Development of Safe, Effective Difluoramination Reagents

Rocket motors that develop greater thrust with lower weight and volume require-ments are an ever present goal of the BMDO. One method of providing this is through formulation of higher energy propellant mixtures. TPL proposes to develop a new method of effectively producing new high perfor-mance propellant constituents for launch, orbit-orbit transfer and station keeping propulsion systems. The proposed constituents incorporate standard nitratnine groups. Current synthesis methods of these materials are extremely harsh and dangerous. These problems severely curtail the potentinl of these materials. TPL will advance difluoramine chemistry through the development of two novel syn-thetic routes for selectively generating gem-bis (diflouralmino) functionalities on nitramine compounds or their precursors. These reagents will function under mild conditions and without the use of an oleum solution containing dissolved difluoramine gas. This innovation will enable increased yields and an increase in the potential utility to include many acid sensitive precursors. TPL is active in numerous areas of energetic materials research. Previous and current projects include synthesis and formulation for the Navy and Air Force, demilitSrization, and full scale chemical process development. The propsed project will provide a safe, scalable method for the addition of difluoramino groups in a large variety of substrates. There are potential com-mercial applications in more przwerful detonators as well as possible new pharma-ceutical or medical applications utilizing compounds with this newly available functional group.