Armadillo Aerospace News: FMC visit, poisoned catalyst, vehicle work

We had an all day meeting on Tuesday with three FMC representatives, who we are still trying to convince to sell 90% peroxide to us. We showed them our shop and test site, and went over everything we are doing. We also learned a few interesting bits from them:
Buffalo Electro Chemical Corp (BECCO) is mentioned in a lot of early literature on peroxide from the 50’s. I didn’t know that FMC had actually acquired them in the early days.
FMC’s dislike for polyethylene containers for 90% peroxide is mostly due to what can happen in a fire – molten PE can go into solution with peroxide and detonate. In normal operation, there is some danger of embrittlement in long term storage, but there isn’t any actual incompatibility. There was an incident where a train containing a tank car of 70% peroxide followed by a car full of PE pellets derailed. After some fires started and some PE melted, it went boom. Read More