Potassium Chlorate Decomposition Under High Pressure Harrison Ruiz 1, Michael Pravica 2, Martin Galley 2 1. Citrus College, 1000 W Foothill Blvd., Glendora, CA, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Box , 4505 Maryland Parkway,Las Vegas, NV

Background High pressure physics involves bringing materials to high pressure to test their properties. Diamond anvil cells(DAC) are commonly used to generate this large amount of pressure. Merril-Bassett Diamond Anvil Cell (Picture by Dr. Michael Pravica, UNLV)

Potassium Chlorate is a chemical commonly used as an oxygen producer and as an explosive when mixed with other chemicals. When placed under heat it will decompose to give off oxygen gas in the following reaction: 2 KClO 3 (s) + heat → 3 O 2 (g) + 2KCl(s) Pressure will be added to Potassium Chlorate to determine if this can also induce the decomposition reaction.

Experiment A DAC was set up with a 3:1 ratio of Potassium Chlorate to Manganese Dioxide. The DAC was brought up to GPa. The pressure was determined by the ruby spectrum. Raman spectroscopy was performed on the DAC to determine if a peak appeared that could represent oxygen gas.

Temperature Temperature was also raised slightly in this experiment to determine if a higher pressure would require a lower temperature to decompose. The DAC was raised to 50°C in an oven and then allowed to cool. The picture above is of the molecular structure of KClO 3

Analysis After the experiment was performed graphs were constructed for intensity vs. wavenumber. If oxygen gas was present a peak around the wavenumber 1556 cm -1 was expected to appear 1.

In the graphs constructed from the raman spectroscopy a peak that represented oxygen gas could not be found. In the future Potassium Chlorate will be tested at more pressures and temperatures to see where the substance will begin to decompose.

References John B.R. Dunn, Duward F. Shriver, and Irving M. Klotz, Resonance IRaman Studies of the Electronic State of Oxygen in Hemerythrin Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 70, pp (1973)

Acknowledgments Brian Hosterman for assistance with microRaman system. Portions of this experiment were performed at HPCAT(Sector 16), Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory. HPCAT is supported by CIW, CDAC, UNLV and LLNL through funding from DOE-NNSA, DOE-BES and NSF. APS is supported by DOE-BES, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH Support from the REU program of the National Science Foundation under grant DMR is gratefully acknowledged.