Journalism of Courage
Scientist’s at the High Energy Material Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune have indigenously developed the most powerful non-nuclear explosive in the world. They are now looking at lowering its manufacturing cost.
Named CL-20,its a cage structured nitramine class of explosive and its performance is around 15 per cent higher than HMX,25 per cent than RDX and 40 per cent than TNT.
CL-20 was invented and synthesized by A T Nielsen in 1987 at the US Navy test center,China Lake,that is why the name CL. In view of superior performance,CL-20 can be regarded a high-energy material of the next generation. Its the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man and has higher thermal stability and higher explosive performance compared to RDX and HMX. It cannot be imported and that gave rise to the need of developing it indigenously, said Dr A K Sikder,joint director,HEMRL.
Working on the project since 1998,Sikder had presented a paper on the explosive in Defence Science Journal of the DRDO in 2001. The project gained momentum in 2006 and we collaborated with Hyderabad-based Premiere Explosives Limited,which developed a method to prepare CL-20 with an initial 50 gm-per-batch and then put it into production level at five-kg-per-batch in collaboration with private industries. The aim is to produce it with any ordnance factory, he added.
CL-20 has military and commercial applications. It is expected to bring down weights of warheads and is being evaluated as a filler in rocket propellants,high explosives,high energetic aluminized and minimum smoke composite propellants.
