Ammonium nitrate, properties, chemical

Physical and Chemical Properties. Ammonium nitrate is a white, crystalline salt, df = 1.725, that is highly soluble in water, as shown in Table 3 (7). Although it is very hygroscopic, it does not form hydrates. This hygroscopic nature compHcates its usage in explosives, and until about 1940, was a serious impediment to its extensive use in fertilizers. The soHd salt picks up water from air when the vapor pressure of water exceeds the vapor pressure of a saturated aqueous ammonium nitrate solution (see Table 4). 

Exothermic Decompositions These decompositions are nearly always irreversible. Sohds with such behavior include oxygen-containing salts and such nitrogen compounds as azides and metal styphnates. When several gaseous products are formed, reversal would require an unlikely complex of reactions. Commercial interest in such materials is more in their storage properties than as a source of desirable products, although ammonium nitrate is an important explosive. A few typical exampes will be cited to indicate the ranges of reaction conditions. They are taken from the review by Brown et al. ( Reactions in the Solid State, in Bamford and Tipper, Comprehensive Chemical Kinetics, vol. 22, Elsevier, 1980). 

Grafting and networking may modify the mechanical, chemical, and functional properties of polymers and enhance their utilization for some purposes, such as for water treatment (Kumar and Verma, 2007 Mishra et al., 2003). Psyllium derivatives were prepared by grafting acrylonitrile onto psyllium molecules using a ceric ammonium nitrate and nitric acid system (Mishra et al., 2003). The resulted grafted psyllium samples were not soluble in commonly used solvents or their combinations. In 2007, methacrylic acid derivatives of psyllium were prepared using ammonium persulfate as initiator and cross-linked using N,N-methylenebisacryla-mide as the crosslinker (Kumar and Verma, 2007). The modified psyllium... 

Before anything else can be said about IEs, some rudimentary chemistry is needed. From a cookbook perspective, all explosives (be they military, commercial, or improvised) require the same chemical building blocks, which consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. Some explosives have the fuel and oxidizer as part of the same molecule, such as trinitrotoluene (TNT), and some explosives are comprised of mixtures of separate fuels and oxidizers, such as ammonium nitrate-fuel oil (ANFO). The oxidizer employed by the vast majority of explosives tends to be the NO2 (nitro) group. It is so predominant as an explosive ingredient that the primary focus of detection methods traditionally has been to look for nitro-derived properties. IEs tend to utilize a more diverse range of oxidizers. Table 3.1 gives a list of the numerous oxidizer possibilities. 

Ammonium nitrate is the most readily available and cheapest salt of nitric acid, now manufactured wholly from synthetic ammonia and from nitric acid obtained by oxidation of ammonia. Ammonium nitrate was prepared for the first time as early as in 1659 by Glauber. The original experiments with it as a component of explosive mixtures began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ammonium nitrate is the most widely used oxygen carrier, since it is an ingredient of the commonest group of high explosives. The reasons for this are to be seen in its properties and those of its explosive mixtures appreciable chemical stability, and low sensitiveness to friction and to shock. 

Some of the physical and chemical properties of ammonium nitrate are given in Table 10.2103. 

Isotopes are not expected to be absolutely identical in chemical properties (p. 247), but the difference is observable only in the light elements where the ratio of the mass of the isotopes is large, for instance and Thode and Urey (1939) concentrated nitrogen-15 in ammonium nitrate, to the extent of 70%, by allowing a solution of the salt to flow down a column against a counter current of ammonia. The equilibrium constant (p. 178) for... 

NFPA 325 Fire Hazard Properties of Flammable Liquids, Gases and Volatile Solids NFPA 430 Storage of Liquid and Solid Oxidizers NFPA 490 Storage of Ammonium Nitrate NFPA 491M Hazardous Chemical Reactions... 

Chemical Properties. Chemical properties of the polymers are consistent with those expected for the constituents of the materials, and with those expected of anionic polymers. Osmarins are oxidized by a wide variety of common oxidizing agents including potassium permanganate and ceric ammonium nitrate. 

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES incompatible with strong acids, sulfur, Ni(NOj)2, wood and other combustibles reacts violently with titanium, ammonium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, potassium, performic acid, fluorine, selenium, sulfur, and sulfur compounds, hydrazine, ammonia, and hydrazoic acid... 

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES stable in air or toward water at ordinary temperatures slowly attacked by hydrochloric acid or cold sulfuric acid corrodes readily in air reacts with strong oxidizers or ammonium nitrate noncombustible exeept in powder LHf (62 cal/g). 

Ammonium nitrate I lygroscopicity of ammonium nitrate Chemical and explosive properties I Ivdrazinc nitrates I lydrazinc mononitrate 11ydra/inc dinitrate... 

Ammonium nitrate Physical properties Chemical and explosive properties Ihermal decomposition Explosive decomposition and stability Commercial product... 

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