Highly Efficient Engineered Obscurant Nanomaterials

Obscurant materials are used by the Army to protect both the soldier as well as military physical assets. Several obscuration systems have been developed over the years to defeat threats in all areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Current obscurant materials typically consist of off-the-shelf or processed metal particles or flakes in which key properties such as particle size and aspect ratio are poorly defined or difficult to control. This lack of defined particle properties renders the tuning or control of attenuation properties difficult, in both the infrared and other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Furthermore, current smokes have significant environmental persistence that may pose health hazards. Thus, there is a critical need for new obscurant materials with enhanced properties. To address the need for an effective obscurant, Lynntech, in collaboration with the New Mexico State University, is proposing to develop scalable methods for fabrication of environmentally friendly, non-toxic and highly efficient obscurants based on conductive polymer nano-materials. The goals of the Phase I research will be to develop novel processes and methodologies to produce highly efficient infrared obscurant materials, and to determine their electromagnetic wave interaction and optimization of their attenuation and scattering efficiency.