The exploration of the influence of cooling crystallization parameters on the characteristics of ammonium perchlorate particles: resolved by taguchi orthogonal array design method

摘要

Crystallization is the most critical step in determining the mechanical strength and crystal size distribution of ammonium perchlorate. In this study, four crystallization parameters including cooling rate, cooling trend, mixing rate, and seeding ratio were selected and their effects on the bulk hardness and size distribution were studied by the implementation of Taguchi's method using a 1.3-litre agitated batch crystallizer. It is revealed that cooling rate was the most significant parameter in determining the bulk hardness of the resulted crystals where slower cooling rales resulted in greater bulk hardness and attrition resistance. The sub-180μ fraction of crystals was chosen to indicate the desirability of the size distribution of prepared products. This fraction and also average crystal size were mostly affected by seeding ratio. Taguchi's method was then employed to optimize the parameters toward maximizing the bulk hardness. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy ISEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used for characterization of the harvested AP crystals.