Ammonium nitrate explosives invention

Class V. Gelatinous Nitroglycerin-Ammonium Nitrate Explosives, invented by A. Nobel in 1879 under the name of Extra Dynamites. They are now known as Ammonium Nitrate Gelatin Dynamites or Ammonia Gelatin Dy-... 

Bachmann A process for making the explosive RDX. Hexamethylene tetramine is nitrated in acetic acid solution, using a mixture of ammonium nitrate and acetic anhydride. Invented by W. E. Bachmann at the University of Michigan during World War II. See also KA, Woolwich. 

Recently rock explosives mainly for use in opencast mining, composed of ammonium nitrate with fuel oil (as invented in the U.S.A. see p. 482) were introduced in Japan. 

Nevertheless ANFO had two significant limitations ammonium nitrate is very water-soluble, so wet boreholes readily deactivated the explosive and ANFO s low density of 0.85 g/cc limited its bulk explosive strength. Many attempts were made to waterproof the product and add densifying agents, but with only limited success. However, because of this effort the next advance in industrial explosives technology was made by the invention of slurry explosives. 

The latest significant development in industrial explosives actually was invented only a few years after slurries, but full commercialization has occurred only within about the last fifteen years. Water-in-oil emulsion explosives involve essentially the same ingredients that slurry composite explosives do, but in a different physical form. Aqueous solutions of oxidizer salts, primarily ammonium nitrate, are emulsified into a relatively small amount of oil and emulsifier. Because of oxygen-balance constraints the volume ratio of the two liquid phases is about 90 10 for the aqueous and oil phases, respectively. This... 

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