Adhesion between binders and explosive crystals is of critical importance for the mechanical performance of plastic-bonded explosives (PBXs) The surface properties of several prospective binders have been determined from static advancing contact angle measurements The surface energies have been used to calculate theoretical work of adhesion to 1 3 5-triamino 24 6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) a common insensitive high explosive The fluorinated terpolymer Oxy461 (TM) and Kel F (TM) chlorotrifluoroethylene-vinylidene fluoride copolymers show the greatest potential for wetting TATB surfaces and should promote the best adhesion to TATB in PBX formulations In general none of the fluoropolymer binders investigated here exhibit markedly superior adhesion to TATB Thus bulk physical properties are likely to be more Important when choosing a binder (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved