Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Nitrous oxide based explosives

Adas - 20-11-2011 at 07:43

Hello,
I was searching and I didn't find anything, so I made a new topic.
Nitrous oxide is very common, and (almost) anyone can buy it in pure form. I was wondering if it can form explosive mixtures (other than gaseous) or energetic materials with other substances. I tried dissolving it in castrol oil, but it didn't dissolve much, and when I tried to light it, the gas just went out. Are there other possibilities? Is there an ogranic solvent which can dissolve N2O very good? If not, can N2O be used as a reagent for making some energetics? I do not know much about its reactivity, but probably there is some way...

Thanks for your time :)

hissingnoise - 20-11-2011 at 09:09

Quote:
Is there an ogranic solvent which can dissolve N2O very good? If not, can N2O be used as a reagent for making some energetics.

Nitrous oxide contains little more oxygen than air and it is used as a safe oxidiser in some propellants!
Liquid N<sub>2</sub>O dissolves some organic substances, though, and these mixtures would likely be dangerously sensitive.

From Wiki---
Quote:
Chemical/physical
At room temperature (20°C) the saturated vapor pressure is 58.5 bar, rising up to 72.45 bar at 36.4°C — the critical temperature. The pressure curve is thus unusually sensitive to temperature.[67] Liquid nitrous oxide acts as a good solvent for many organic compounds; liquid mixtures may form shock sensitive explosives.[citation needed]

As with many strong oxidizers, contamination of parts with fuels have been implicated in rocketry accidents, where small quantities of nitrous/fuel mixtures explode due to 'water hammer' like effects (sometimes called 'dieseling' — heating due to adiabatic compression of gases can reach decomposition temperatures).[68] Some common building materials such as stainless steel and aluminium can act as fuels with strong oxidisers such as nitrous oxide, as can contaminants, which can ignite due to adiabatic compression.[69]


Adas - 20-11-2011 at 09:29

Thanks for reply. And what about gaseous nitrous oxide? I think that N2O-based energetics (and rocket fuels) would be very interesting, because of availability of N2O.

Formatik - 20-11-2011 at 23:47

I briefly brought it up in this thread:

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=10650

I didn't mention it in that thread, but I had bubbled a lot of N2O through a small volume of methanol at standard atmospheric pressure, and it caused hardly any to no significant mass increase.

Btw. gases dissolved in liquids that form curious detonable mixtures are the simple boranes. They can form shock-sensitive or detonable mixtures with ethers, halocarbons, sulfoxides, etc. Some mixtures of the boranes involving organofluoroamines are air-sensitive and can outpower RDX in the trauzl test (example in USP 4376665).

trezza - 21-11-2011 at 01:13

What about Nitrosamines? Cyclotrimethylene-Trinitrosamine (CTMTNA) Can be made by using a nitrite, most likely NaNo2 and dissolving it in Hydrochloric acid which I believe creates a weak foamy blue solution of Nitrous Acid, then Hexamine is added to that and you have your product, I know it's not "Nitrous Oxide" based per say but meh, it's something different.

If you've heard of it then you should probably know that this compound is quite carcinogenic... Then again what isn't these days?

[Edited on 21-11-2011 by trezza]

497 - 21-11-2011 at 08:05

There is a patent out there on the use of liquid N2O mixed with fuels. He claims decent VOD and low sensitivity. It is going to be a bit inconvenient because it must be in a pressure vessel or very cold.

I wondered a few months ago how a N2O + C2F2H4 + Al/Mg powder mixture would perform. The C2F2H4 is dirt cheap in that "dust off" shit.

unionised - 21-11-2011 at 13:24

Not altogether convenient, but it works.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac00069a028