Study of the explosibility characteristics of aluminium-silver metal mixtures

Abstract

When two combustible powders mixed as solid/solid mixtures, the physical and chemical properties of both types of dust have an impact on cloud flammability and its explosivity. This study is mainly focused on aluminium-silver mixtures as they are suitable candidates for semiconductor industries and passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) manufacturing. In order to assess the explosivity of aluminium-silver clouds, studying the effects of particle size distribution, by mixing weight ratio and powder concentrations, has been carried out in a 0.012 m3 cylindrical vessel. In particular, on nanoscales, the explosion characteristics of aluminium powder were different when compared to the silver venting explosion, as the size of the particles was reduced from 70 to 40 nm. The results also showed that Pred was reduced by about one third when 50% wt. silver was introduced to nanoaluminium powder mixtures. Moreover, by mixing the two metals, it modified the mean particle size and the spatial dust distribution in the test vessel, impacting the uniformity of the dust cloud, especially when the silver particle size was 10 µm. The present work demonstrates that, silver exhibited a ‘suppressing effect’ on aluminium/silver mixtures explosion, and this condition was explored in this work.