Continuous, safe and large-scale preparation of insensitive high-energy TATB/HMX composite particles by microfluidic self-assembly technology.

• The microfluidic self-assembly technology is used to prepare insensitive high-energy explosives. • This method can achieve continuous, safe and large-scale preparation of composite energetic materials. • The prepared TATB/HMX composite particles have great safety performance and detonation properties. Recently, to prepare energetic materials (EMs) with high energy and low sensitivity has attracted much attention in the field of EMs research. However, the safe and efficient manners to prepare such EMs are still limited. In this work, a continuous microfluidic self-assembly method was developed to prepare TATB/HMX composite particles, which has great safety performances (H 50 = 64.6 cm, friction sensitivity = 0 %) and detonation properties (detonation velocity 8375 m/s, ρ = 1.780 g/cm3). The XRD and SEM results show that in-situ generated nano-TATB (mass fraction 10 %) is not only bonded to the surface of HMX, but also embed in the crystal. Furthermore, this method realizes the continuous and stable preparation of TATB/HMX composite particles within 80 min. We anticipate that this work will inspire new perspectives for the preparation of insensitive high-energy explosives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]