The term “biocide” or “biocidal” refers to a chemical substance capable of killing living organisms, usually in a selective way. Biocides are commonly used in medicine, agriculture, forestry, and in industry where they prevent the fouling of water and oil pipelines. Some substances used as biocides are also employed as anti-fouling agents or disinfectants under other circumstances. The term “biological agent” refers to any living organisms or the materials derived from them (including, but not limited to, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and toxins) that cause disease in or harm to humans that could be used in biological warfare. Harmful biological agents include anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) spores. The term “agent” refers to biological agents.
Past agent defeat projects have used hydrogen chloride as a chemical neutralizer, e.g., Lockheed Martin's “Agent Defeat Warhead Device”: “These propellants produce gas-phase water and hydrogen chloride that combine to form very reactive hot hydrochloric acid; and as the reactants cool the cooled hydrochloric acid remains in the bunker and may act to continue neutralization of bunker contents for many days . . . . Thus, incendiary agents based on standard composite rocket propellant technology are logical choices for the application described herein.” [Jones, J. W. U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,105 (2002)]. It has long been known that HCl has among the poorest bactericidal activities of common acid species. [Paul, T. et al. Biochemische Zeitschrift 1911, 29, 202].
Other agent defeat concepts have employed elemental chlorine (a more efficient biocide than HCl) [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/adw.htm]. Such formulations so far have produced only low levels of Cl2. One drawback of Cl2 deployment is residual toxic chloro-organics such as chloramines, etc.
In contrast to HCl, hydrogen fluoride (HF) is an efficient antibacterial, antimicrobial biocide: 200 ppm aq. HF destroys Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Saccharomyces diastaticus in 5 min [Bessems, E.; Junger, R. GB Patent 1584845 (1981)]; and 1-100 ppm aq. HF sterilizes water lines [Tatsuno, T. et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,605 (1992)].
Novel energetic materials have been sought whose deployment would produce biocidal reaction products following explosive events that destroy a structure or containers involving harmful chemical or biological agents, thus neutralizing the agents post-blast. Based on the attractiveness of hydrogen fluoride as a superior agent defeat by-product—from its known biocidal activity—a class of energetic ingredient that appeared particularly promising for incorporation into explosive formulations for the specific application of agent defeat weapons was the class of energetic difluoramines.
Energetic materials have been sought whose deployment would produce biocidal reaction products following explosive events that destroy a structure or containers involving harmful biological agents, thus neutralizing the agents post-blast. Thus, there exists a need in the art for such an explosive that is has high biocidal activity during and/or after detonation, and is an easily synthesized, powerful and efficient chemical neutralizer.
It is to be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not to be viewed as being restrictive of the invention, as claimed. Further advantages of this invention will be apparent after a review of the following detailed description of the disclosed embodiments, which are illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings and in the appended claims.