Development of a dual-spectroscopic system to rapidly measure diisopropyl methyl phosphonate (DIMP) decomposition and temperature in a reactive powder environment.

The development of systems to measure and optimize emerging energetic material performance is critical for Chemical Warfare Agent (CWA) defeat. In order to assess composite metal powder efficacy on CWA simulant defeat, this study documents a combination of two spectroscopic systems designed to monitor the decomposition of a CWA simulant and temperature rises due to combusting metal powders simultaneously. The first system is a custom benchtop Polygonal Rotating Mirror Infrared Spectrometer (PRiMIRS) incorporating a fully customizable sample cell to observe the decomposition of Diisopropyl Methyl Phosphonate (DIMP) as it interacts with combusting composite metal particles.