Investigation of Ammonium Perchlorate Purity Improvement via Chlorate Removal Using of Ni/Fe Bimetallic Nanoparticles

Ammonium perchlorate is widely used as an oxidizer in the propellant formulation and pyrotechnics According to military standard having high purity and free of impurities such as chlorate . So, the removal of impurities in the production of ammonium perchlorate will be highly regarded. In this paper, the removal of chlorate was investigated by reducing process using metal nanoparticles. In this work, at first, stabilized Ni/Fe bimetallic nanoparticles (S-Ni/Fe NPs) was synthesized and the structure and size of the particles were investigated by XRD, FE-SEM, and EDS. Nano particles were obtained with particle size of 20-50 nm. Prepared nanoparticles were used for the selective removal of chlorate in aqueous ammonium perchlorate. The main factors that affect the removal process such as pH, reaction temperature, reaction time and amount of nanoparticles were investigated and the optimum values were determined. Chlorate in the presence of perchlorate showed a removal of 100 percent, while the perchlorate had been removed to a very small amount.The proposed method for the removal of chlorate in a saturated solution of ammonium perchlorate, which is used in the production process, was showed satisfactory results.