Stabilizing Amorphous Solid Dispersions of 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene

Herein we report on the successful stabilization of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in the amorphous state at ambient temperature using stabilizing polymers. Our study shows that while approaches based on melt-quenching and resonant acoustic mixing (operating as a milling technique) are partially successful, spray-drying results in fully amorphous samples that resist conversion to the crystalline state. While the time to onset of recrystallization was typically around 1 week, spray-drying TNT with poly(vinyl alcohol) produced a material that remained amorphous for a much longer time scale. Preliminary small-scale hazard testing suggests that the amorphous solid dispersions of TNT are insensitive to initiation by friction and mechanical impact, and appear to be less sensitive to initiation by electrostatic discharge compared to polycrystalline TNT.