Rancho Cordova CA
6 posts, Nov 2002

posted 11-24-2002 11:47 PM            

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Has anyone suggested that perhaps part of what you are concerned about is the Air Force doing some temporary aerial disposal of stale dissolved solid rocket fuel? Said fuel consists primarily of ammonium perchlorate and aluminum powder. EPA scrutiny of environmental perchlorate began in 1997 and may have closed off some traditional disposal methods in surface water.

Larry Ladd


From:

http://pta6000.pld.com/hailman/miscellaneous/final01/physical.htm


"From 1987 through 1995 the liquid seeding agent was the same: The oxidizers, sodium perchlorate and ammonium perchlorate, were added to a silver iodide-ammonium iodide- water-acetone solution resulting in a solution containing 2% AgI by weight. However, in 1996 the solution was changed to contain AgI, sodium iodide (NaCl), paradichlorobenzene (C6H4Cl2) and acetone. Cloud chamber test results indicated the number of ice crystals produced by the new solution at -10C were nearly equivalent to the old solution containing the perchlorates. Also, these the new particles initially acted as hygroscopic CCN which continued to ensure that the vast vast numbers of water droplets would have a strong tendency to contain IN particles. Contact nucleation occurs when ice nuclei, initially are not trapped in the water droplets, but eventually are captured by other droplets through random collisions within the cloud, then become ice crystals. The entire process of hygroscopic condensation, followed by freezing and contact nucleation, forms greater numbers of ice crystals at relatively warmer temperatures within a cloud than by simple contact nucleation."

For more information on environmental perchlorate, see
http://www.ewg.org/reports/rocketscience
http://www.perchlorate.org

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