Process for the recovery of carborane from reject propellant

摘要

Disclosed is a process for the recovery of carborane from reject solid propellant. The process comprises slicing or shredding into small pieces the solid propellant under water, screening the propellant to remove water from the propellant, performing a pentane extraction of the carborane from the small pieces of propellant, diluting the carborane/pentane solution with additional pentane and the carborane/pentane solution to remove small particles of propellant and other solids such as ammonium perchlorate, allowing the filtering effluent of carborane/pentane solution to enter a water wash tank at the bottom to remove ammonium perchlorate and other water soluble propellant materials, allowing the carborane/pentane layer to separate from the water layer, and then siphoning the carborane/pentane solution from the water layer, and distilling the pentane to separate and recover the carborane.