Safe Handling of Energetic Materials in the Laboratory

A chemical research laboratory is different from an industrial production facility for many reasons. First of all, only much smaller quantities of energetic materials are handled in a chemical research laboratory and secondly, during research, the properties of new, energetic materials are not known and therefore particular care must be taken. One of the most important safety rules can be worked out from the rule of thumb , which relates the distance D (in m), which offers a chance of survival, to the mass w (in kg) of the explosive. For a typical secondary explosive at large distances, the proportionality constant is approximately 2  

It is important to note that this approximation is based only on the pressure/ impulse of the shock wave and does not take into account the fragment formation (e.g. from confined charges, fume-cupboard front shields in the laboratory, reaction vessel glass). 

In order to work safely with highly energetic materials in the chemical laboratory, the following rules must be obeyed  

Additionally, one must bear in mind that although primary explosives are much more dangerous to handle based on the probability of unexpected initiation due to their higher sensitivity secondary explosives exhibit a much higher performance and if initiated, result in much larger damage than a primary explosive. 

With regards to research into new energetic materials, a rule of thumb is that all synthetic attempts should first of all be carried out in 250 mg quantities while various sensitivity data is obtained (impact, friction and electrostatic sensitivity. 

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