Mercury fulminate storage

Mercury fulminate is usually stored under water, or, where there is danger of freezing, under a mixture of water and alcohol. When wet it is not exploded by a spark or by ordinary shock, but care must be taken that no part of the individual sample is allowed to dry out, for wet fulminate is exploded by the explosion of dry fulminate. It is not appreciably affected by long storage, either wet or dry, at moderate temperatures. At the temperature of the tropics it slowly deteriorates and loses its ability to explode. At 35°C. (95°F.) it becomes completely inert after about 3 years, at 50°C. (122°F.) after about 10 months. The heavy, dark-colored product of the deterioration of fulminate is insoluble in sodium thiosulfate solution. 

Lead azide is a more efficient detonating agent than mercury fulminate. It requires a higher temperature for its spontaneous explosion, and it does not decompose on long continued storage at moderately elevated tem )cratures. It cannot be dead-pressed by any pressure which occurs in ordinary manufacturing operations. Lead azide pressed into place in a detonator capsule takes the fire less readily, or explodes from spark less readily, than... 

Mercury fulminaic tnanut aciure Storage and further processing of mercury fulminate Treatment of waste Other salts of fulminic acid Literature... 

Tetryl is a fine, yellow, crystalline material and exhibits a very high shattering power. It is commonly used as a booster in explosive trains. It is stable in storage. Tetryl is used in detonators. It is pressed into the bottom of the detonator housing and covered with a small priming charge of mercury fulminate or lead azide. 

AU precautions required for protection of magazines apply to storage of these materials. They should not be handled when frozen. Wet fulminate of mercury or wet floor coverings containing small quantities of fulminates may be burned on windrows of flammable material. Nonexplosive products are formed by neutralizing fulminates with cold sodium thiosulfate. All floors, tables, and walls where the dry... 

Tri-nitro toluene cannot be exploded by a flame nor by heating in the open, and is only slightly decomposed by striking it a blow. It is best exploded by means of a detonator of fulminate of mercury. It is used for military purposes in shells, bombs and submarine mines. It also forms a constituent of many mixed explosives. It is about 5 per cent less powerful and also less violent and less sensitive than picric acid (p. 630), and does not form sensitive salts or other products under storage conditions as does the latter. A few examples may be given of mixed explosives made with tri-nitro toluene in which ammonium nitrate is used as an oxidizer. The presence of the nitrate weakens the power of the T.N.T , but the mixtures are not very sensitive and are adapted to military purposes and some of them to mine blasting. 

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