Optimizing sol–gel surrogate nuclear explosive debris for laboratory analysis applications

Abstract

Surrogate nuclear explosive debris (SNED) is critical to post-detonation nuclear forensic science. We report a systematic study optimizing the dissolution characteristics of sol–gel based SNED. Total carbon analyses of sol–gels indicate elimination of unreacted carbon from residual ethyl groups when samples are annealed above 500 °C. Sol–gel SNED annealed between 600 and 800 °C dissolves similarly to Trinitite when using both HCl/HF and HNO₃/HF based dissolution approaches. Taken together, these data demonstrate the ability to produce highly tunable, realistic SNED samples that can be employed to support future laboratory analysis applications.