Mercury fulminate analysis

Mercury in Abel heat test, 77 in mercury fulminate, estimation of, 60 in smokeless powders, estimatioin of, 54 Mercury fulminate, analysis of mixtures containing, 15a explosive properties of, 153 mixture fur )ercu5sioa caps,... 

In the analysis of water, the use of ethanol to remove more than traces of nitrate or nitrite ion may lead to formation of fulminic acid, and if mercury(II) is used as a catalyst, explosive mercury fulminate may be formed. 

The product was dried in a drier (as described for mercury fulminate) at temperatures from 65 to 70°C in batches of 1.2 kg at a time it was then sieved as described above. A sieve analysis of the product showed, for example, the following sizes of crystals ... 

P 1366 — Analysis of Compositions Containing Mercury Fulminate and Potassium Chlorate... 

Mercury fulminate dissolves readily in an aqueous solution of potassium cyanide to form a complex compound from which it is reprecipitated by the addition of strong acid. It dissolves in pyridine and precipitates again if the solution is poured into water. A sodium thiosulfate solution dissolves mercury fulminate with the formation of mercury tetrathionate and other inert compounds, and this reagent is used both for the destruction of fulminate and for its analysis.10 The first reaction appears to be as follows. 

At the start of 1978 the particle analysis method183 replaced the flameless atomic absorption bulk elemental method184 as the firearm residue detection method in the NIFSL. Since then the particle analysis method has been substantially improved by the use of a sample concentration/cleanup procedure,185 the addition of a backscattered electron detector, and the development of an automated residue detection system.186 187 Despite these improvements the technique remains costly and labor intensive. Certain aspects of the system required further work, in particular, the particle classification scheme discharge particles from mercury fulminate-primed ammunition and discharge particles from new primer types (Sintox). 

The analysis of primers supports the statement that Communist Bloc countries frequently use mercury fulminate primers and it is also worth noting that the same applies to ammunition manufactured in France, at least for the time period involved. According to the literature there has been no mer-... 

The analysis of simple fulminate-chlorate mixtures may be effected by extraction either with water or with pyridine. In the former method the mixture ts digested with c

mercury fulminate is dried at 50 for three hours and weighed. Some fulminate dissolves in the water. This is estimated by precipitation as sulphide. The chlorate may also be determined in the filtrate. The solution t boiled with nitric acid and tlwn treated with fbrntaldehyde and silver nitrate. Silver chloride is precipitated and the estimation may be made gravimetrically or by Vol hard s method. 

However, when lead azide, lead styphnate, mercury fulminate, RDX, TNT, and PETN were subjected to bombardment with a negative pion beam, no explosions or decompositions were observed for any of the explosives. The analysis had predicted initiation only for RDX. Also it had indicated that nuclear fission events would produce higher energy densities and greater temperature increases than were actually observed. 

The Analysis of Cap Composition.—Messrs F.W. Jones and F.A. Willcox ( Chem. News Dec. 11,1896) have proposed the following process for the analysis of this substance --Cap composition usually consists of the ingredients—potassium chlorate, antimony sulphide, and mercury fulminate, and to estimate these substances in the presence of each other by ordinary analytical methods is a difficult process. Since the separation of antimony sulphide and mercury fulminate in the presence of potassium chlorate necessitates the treatment of the mixture with hydrochloric acid, and this produces an evolution of hydrogen sulphide from the sulphide, and a consequent precipitation of sulphur and potassium chlorate cannot be separated from the other ingredients by treatment with water, owing to the appreciable solubility of mercury fulminate in cold water. 

The mercury fulminate (MF) formula is HgCC N" —0 )2 with a covalent bond between the mercury and carbon atoms [20]. Its crystal density is reported to be 4.42-4.43 g cm [29, 30, 39, 40], but recent results of X-ray analysis updated it to 4,467 g cm [21]. Bulk density depends on crystal size and shape—it is reported to be between 1.35 and 1.55 g cm [38]. The heat of formation of MF is reported as being between —268 and —273 kJ moP [29, 41, 42]. The structure of the MF molecule and its crystal was published recently by Beck et al. [21]. Pure and ordinarily prepared mercury fulminate is, for all practical purposes, not hygroscopic, but its hygroscopicity rapidly increases in presence of impurities (e.g., mercury oxalate, calomel, mercuric chloride), which are generally present in the industrial... 

The structure of metallic salts of fulminic acid is usually presented by a Pauling-like structure with metal bonded to carbon [3, 20-22], This seems to be a reasonable assumption even though some authors published studies supporting bonding between metal and oxygen [23] or even the possibility of the existence of both of these forms [24], The issue still causes discussion and a report of a theoretical study [22] and X-ray analysis [21], supporting the bonding between metal and carbon, was recently published. The character of the metal to carbon bond of alkaline and thalhum fulminate is ionic, whereas fulminates of silver and mercury are covalent [20, 25],... 

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