Ignition and explosion risks of nanopowders

Characterization methods with regard to nanopowder flammability and explosivity are presented and illustrated for few nanopowders. Analytical models are developed in order to explain the dependency of the combustion times on the particle diameter. Experimental evidence shows that there exists, for carbonaceous and metallic materials, mainly two combustion regimes that are either kinetically controlled, for small size particles, or diffusion controlled, for large size particles. From the experimentally measured combustion data of those materials, the dependencies of the ignition temperature and the minimal explosive concentration (MEC) with regard to the particle size have been analyzed. We found that the two combustion regimes yield two different tendencies with respect to the particle size. Overall, it is found that as the particle size decreases, minimum ignition temperature (MIT) and minimum ignition energy (MIE) decrease, indicating higher potential inflammation and explosion risks for the use of nanopowders. By contrast, the minimal explosion concentration (MEC) did not show strong variations as the particle size decreases. Rather, a theoretical plateau is observed, which was experimentally confirmed. We also observed that carbon nanopowders exhibit a low propensity to explode while metallic nanopowders can be very reactive, thus delineating high potentials for explosion risks in manufacturing facilities.