Pull-crackers

Russia and other counrries it. has been used for prepn of "snaps", "pull-crackers", paper caps for toy pistols and "jumpiog frogs". Also in amusement devices such as "cigars" and "spiders". If a few grains of wet SF are spread on a floor, loud cracks are heard if they are walked upon (See Beil 1, 722 and AddnlRefs for SF)... 

Silver fulminate is still used for similar purposes in practical jokes, in toy torpedoes (see Vol. I, p. 106), and in the snaps or pull-crackers which supply the noise for bon-boms, joy-boms, and similar favors. 

A combination of the high cost of silver and the extreme sensitiveness of silver fulminate has prevented its wider use in commercial and military applications. Detonators containing silver fulminate (first used by Turpin in 1885 for initiation of picric acid) were apparently used only by the Italian Navy [35,48]. It was also used in small quantities in fireworks and pyrotechnic toys such as snaps, or pull-crackers for making noise [12, 13, 28, 36, 38, 104, 105]. 

The wet process is used for manufacturing cracker balls(the composition consists of realgar and potassium chlorate), paper caps (red phosphorus, sulphur and potassium chlorate) and pull-igniters (red phosphorus, antimony trisulphide and potassium chlorate). 

Saudi Aramco (Dharan, Saudi Arabia www.saudiaramco.com), Sinopec and Fujian Petrochemical Co (Fujian Province) are building a 12 million tpa refinery, to be completed in 2007 at Fujian s facility at Hui An. The US 32 billion facility will produce a range of fuels and provide feedstock for an 800 000 tpa cracker, which in turn will feed downstream units producing 400 000 tpa of PE and 300 000 tpa of PP. ExxonMobil (Houston, T, USA www.exxonmobilchemical.com), an original partner, recently pulled out. However, ExxonMobil is also involved in a project to build a 1 million tpa ethylene complex with Sinopec at Guangzhou, to start up in 2008. 

Christmas crackers are popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland and some Commonwealth countries they consist of a cardboard tube wrapped in paper, which is pulled with a small bang like a cap gun, at the start of a holiday meal. Inside is a gift and a rather foolish looking paper crown, which is supposed to be worn for the rest of the meal. 

---