Cotton Is No Longer Needed: Solid Propellant Feedstock from Waste

Every solid propellant, gas generator charge and booster grain starts with one material: nitrocellulose. Industry makes it from cotton linters, and cotton grows where it grows: in Asia, in a zone of monsoons, droughts and export quotas, which supplies more than half of all global volumes. The delivery schedule of a rocket engine is therefore set by the weather in another hemisphere. At the same time the world pays to haul away and bury or burn the same cellulose, in sewage sludge, manure, grape pomace, coastal seaweed, biogas plant effluents and landfills. This preprint describes an alternative route developed at ARBOK: nitrocellulose made from local organic waste with the acid reagent Trinity, itself a by-product of processing chemical waste with ARBOK-ZWD. Reagent purchases and feedstock purchases are zero, and the producer is paid a fee for accepting the waste. The nitrocellulose feeds a family of 3 propellant classes, Arbok-N, Arbok-N+N and Arbok-N+N+N, for space launchers, anti-hail and avalanche rockets, rescue equipment, gas generators and oilfield gas fracturing. Keywords: nitrocellulose; solid propellant; waste valorisation; sewage sludge; sargassum; supply security; circular economy; ARBOK-ZWD; gas generator ARBOK Strategic Research Institute. License: CC BY 4.0.