Chemical explosives Dynamite

Chemical explosives detonate, or deflagrate. Detonating explosives (e.g., TNT or dynamite) rapidly decompose to produce high pressure and a shock front (travels faster than the velocity of sound). Deflagrating explosives (e.g., black and smokeless powders) bum fast, prodr er... 

Explosion is burning that takes place sonically, hence, a shock front is produced. The damage mechanisms are physical destruction from the shock wave, collateral damage from falling structures, and human bums. Suffocation and poisoning are not usually associated with an explosion because of its short duration. A chemical explosives such as nitroglycerine, trinitrotoluene, dynamite, and others were discussed in Section 7.2.6. 

Chemists measure time ( ) because they want to know how long it takes for chemical transformations to occur. Some chemical reactions, such as the conversion of green plants into petroleum, may take millions of years. Other chemical processes, such as an explosion of dynamite, are incredibly fast. Whereas wristwatches typically measure time only to the nearest second, chemists have developed instruments that make it possible to study processes that occur in less than 0.000 000 000 000 01 second. 

Sulfuric acid is not all bad. In fact, it has many useful functions. One of those is to make nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is needed to make explosives like dynamite, but it is also used as a medicine. This dual-purpose chemical compound was discovered by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888) in 1847. 

Among the important war chemicals, second only to nitrogen was the methanol which was already being wafted eastward in the imaginations of Krauch and Ambros and Ter Meer. The methanol went to Dynamit A.G. at Troisdorf and Kummer, where it was converted into the two deadliest and latest explosives — hexogen and nitropenta. 

Farben, said Von Knieriem, had two weapons sole scientific knowledge of the latest chemical developments in the explosives field, and a monopoly on the intermediate products that Dynamit A.G. couldn t do without. If Dynamit A.G. bought nitrates from Chile, their violation of the Versailles Treaty would be obvious to the rest of the world. And in Germany, Farben had a complete monopoly on synthetic nitrates. 

Nitric acid (HNO ) is an important commercial chemical and was manufactured commercially to produce fertilizers and explosives as well as plastics and many other products. In 1902 a German chemist, WiUrehn Ostwald (1853—1932), developed a process wherein at high temperatures he used platinum catalysts to convert ammonia into nitric acid. When nitric acid is reacted with glycerol, the result is nitroglycerine—an unstable explosive unless dissolved in inert material, such as clay. It can then be stabihzed as dynamite. 

Table 4.1 gives the use profile for ammonia. It can be applied directly for fertilizer or made into other nitrogen-containing compounds used for fertilizer such as urea, ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, and nitric acid. Overall approximately 80% of ammonia has an end use as fertilizer. Explosives, a second important end use, made from ammonia are ammonium nitrate and, via nitric acid, the nitroglycerin used in dynamite. Chemical intermediates include acrylonitrile and caprolactam, which eventually go into fibers. 

Why do all organic chemicals just sitting around the laboratory at room temperature have the potential to explode spontaneously The answer is that they can react with O2 in the air at room temperature in chain reactions to form organic peroxides, which can spontaneously react explosively upon shaking or opening the cap. Organic peroxides are examples of compounds that have fuel (C and H atoms) in the same compound with the oxidant, and these are soHd and Hquid explosives similar to dynamite and TNT, which we will discuss later in this chapter. 

A.P. Cartwright, "The Dynamite Company The Story of African Explosives and Chemical Industries Limited , Macdonald, London (1965) 267pp... 

Accdg to Dutton (Ref 58, p 143), the World s largest Dynamite Plant was constructed near Modderfontein, South Africa, it was operated by the African Explosive and Chemical Industries... 

The taming of NG by Alfred Nobel is described in the article on Dynamite in Vol 5, p D1586-R. Even today NG and its close chemical relative EGDN are the best known sensitizers for conventional Dynamites. In recent years, however, Slurry Explosives, whose liq phase is primarily aqueous Ammonium Nitrate (AN), and which contain no NG or EGDN, have been steadily replacing Dynamites (Ref 32)... 

Dynamites were retained for military purposes for some time for use in demolition charges. The disadvantage of these explosives lies in their limited chemical stability. Ultimately, therefore they were replaced by explosives that remain unchanged during storage (aromatic nitro compounds such as TNT, picric acid, and more recently TNT with cyclonite or PETN). 

STD-286B (1 Dec 1967), Method 601.1.1, "Titanous Chloride (0.2N Standard Solution) 20) Frank pristera , 1 Expiosives in Vol 12 of Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemical Analysis, Wiley, NY (1971), pp443—45 (Nitroglycerin and Dynamites, Analysis) 445 (PETN) 445 fit 451 (Ethyleneglycol Nitrates) - 451 (Other organic nitrate esters) 451 (Ammonium Nitrate) 452—60 (Identification of explosives by infrared spectroscopy) 460—62 (Analysis of unknown HE s) 461—67 (Nitrogen content determinations) 467—70 (Other methods for quality control) 470—71 (67 references on analytical procedures)... 

Ammonium Nitrate Dynamite (AND) (American and European Types) A355 to A356 Ammonium Nitrate Explosions, Fires and Hazards A357 to A363 Ammonium Nitrate Explosives of Spencer Chemical Co A354 (table)... 

Generally speaking, combustion is a heat-releasing chemical oxidation reaction, which is often accompanied by the occurrence of a flame. Flame temperatures differ widely from approx. 2000 K for an open flame to approx. 3000 K for the flame of an acetylene cutting torch. Remarkably, the heats of combustion of explosives is generally lower than those of common fuels (pine wood with 12.9% water 4.422 kcal/g, acetylene 11.923 kcal/g, dynamite 75% 1.290 kcal/g. 

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