Materials Explosive Chemicals

Chemical safety is inherently linked to other safety issues including laboratory procedures, personal protectives, equipment, electrical safety, and hazardous waste disposal. 

Not all chemicals are considered as hazardous. Examples of nonhazardous chemicals include buffers, sugars, starches, agar, and naturally occurring amino chemicals. The following sections provide general guidelines for chemical safety. 

Primary metallurgical manufacturing industries associated with metals such as zinc, lead, copper, aluminium, and steel 

An explosive chemical or mixture of chemicals is one that can undergo violent or explosive decomposition under appropriate conditions of reaction or initiation. 

Some chemicals and combinations used in laboratories are known to be explosive. Laboratory manipulations with known explosive chemicals or reagent combinations should be performed only by trained personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the hazards involved and the precautions that must be taken. The worker should know the procedures for destroying or disposing of potentially explosive materials. Any laboratory procedure that results in an unexpected explosion should be investigated to ascertain the probable cause, and a laboratory safety rule established to prevent recurrence. Circumstances of an unexpected explosion should be brought to the attention of workers, team members, management, and the concerned public to help observe caution under similar work conditions. 

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Chemical Reactivity - Reactivity with Water Dissolves in water forming a weak solution of nitric acid. The reaction is nonhazardous Reactivity with Common Materials When in contact with easily oxidizable materials, this chemical may react rapidly enough to cause ignition, violent combustion, or explosion. Water solutions are acidic and can corrode metals Stability During Transport Stable Neutralizing Agents for Acids and Caustics Flush with water Polymerization Not pertinent Inhibitor of Polymerization Not pertinent. 

Often the process may have conditions that control the flexibility of compression equipment selection. These might include limiting temperatures before polymer formation, chemical reaction, excess heat for lubrication materials, explosive conditions greater than a certain temperature, etc. 

An example of the way in which process competition works in the manufacture of plastics is the story of acrylonitrile. The first process for the production of this plastic was based upon the reaction between hydrogen cyanide and acetylene, both hard to handle, poisonous, and explosive chemicals. The raw material costs were relatively low as compared to materials for other monomers, but the plant investment and manufacturing costs were too high. As a result, originally acrylonitrile monomer (1950s) sold for about 30 cents per pound and the future of the material looked dim as other plastics such as polyethylene became available at much lower prices due to their lower production costs. 

Perhaps the place to begin in a book about trace chemical sensing of explosives is to define trace and explosive. If trace is defined as a submilligram quantity, then it should be noted that there are no chemicals that are explosive at trace levels. To clarify this point we need to elaborate on what makes a chemical an explosive. An energetic material is defined as one that releases energy upon decomposition. This material could be an explosive, a propellant, a pyrotechnic, or a fruit cocktail. For an energetic material to be an explosive chemical or composition its must be capable of undergoing decomposition with extremely... 

LX Explosives. A code employed by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Univ of California (Livermore), USA, to designate formulations in production. A specific code designation is assigned to an expl when the state-of development of its formulation has reached the point where a set of reasonable manufg specifications can be written, the evaluation of the material s chemical, physical, expl props and sensitivity is essentially complete, and the material has a definite application... 

Many materials of interest for security applications including explosives, chemical agents, and biological agents have characteristic THz spectra that can be used to fingerprint and thereby identify these concealed materials (Fig. 1). 

Non-military Explosives Nitric acid is consumed in the production of several explosive chemicals and materials although there is no commercial production of trinitrotoluene (TNT). Nitric acid consumption for these explosives is estimated to be about 10,000 thousand tonnes per year. 

In general, it is safer to totally contain, or nearly totally contain, hazardous and flammable materials in chemical processes, if it is reasonably practical to do so, than to allow these materials to escape into the environment. In many cases, this can be accomplished by designing the processing equipment to withstand the maximum pressure that can be expected from runaway polymerizations or other reactions or explosions. This requires detailed knowledge of the process and the possible overpressure that could result. This knowledge can best be obtained from experimental data combined with a theoretical analysis. 

Human mutation data reported. Questionable carcinogen with experimental tumorigenic data. Moderate fire hazard by spontaneous chemical reaction in contact with reducing agents. It ignites readily and burns rapidly. A powerful oxidizer. Dangerous explosion hazard may explode spontaneously when heated to above melting point, or when overheated under confinement. It is moderately sensitive to heat, shock, friction, or contact with combustible materials. Explosive decomposition above the mp (103°) forms flammable products. 

SAFETY PROFILE Moderately toxic by ingestion and intraperitoneal routes. Mildly toxic by skin contact. Human systemic effects by inhalation headache, nausea or vomiting, eye and pulmonary changes. A skin, mucous membrane, and severe eye irritant. Can cause anemia and damage to liver and kidneys. Narcotic in high concentration. Flammable liquid when exposed to heat or flame can react with oxidizing materials. Explosive in the form of vapor when exposed to heat or flame. To fight fire, use alcohol foam, foam, CO2, dry chemical. When heated to decomposition it... 

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