Fire-retardant paint is a cunning product. When strongly heated, it swells up into a frothy char which seals gaps and insulates its substrate from the heat. Daedalus is now taking the idea to extremes. He is devising a polymeric composition loaded with separate tiny particles of a mild explosive, of the type used in automotive air-bags. When detonated, it will expand suddenly and violently into a solid resembling foamed polystyrene.
The chemistry of this novel product is quite challenging. Each particle of explosive must expand into a gas bubble, transiently melting and deforming the polymeric solid around it. The heated viscous thixotropic polymer must be tenacious enough not to fragment under this sudden shock, although it will be hot and soft at the moment of explosion, and will inflate in a pneumatic manner. It will incorporate an added monomer which rapidly sets in the heat, absorbing heat by its reaction and reinforcing the final expanded solid. The mild explosive must be sensitive enough for one particle to set off others nearby, but not enough to make the composition too dangerous to handle. It will be tricky to develop, but the final product, DREADCO's ‘Solid Charge’, will have many uses.
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