Sciencemadness Discussion Board - KMnO4 cheddite?

KMnO4 cheddite?

Fantasma4500 - 2-6-2013 at 07:35

yes, i did UTFSE, and i did find some, but not anything else but some persons stating that it should be possible, nothing practical infact
KMnO4 can relatively easily be bought without anybody being suspicious for koi treatment or even as paint pigment in KG quanities at ~20 euro

i have mixed up KMnO4 and regular food oil just enough to soak it and ignited it a few times and it sure does burn, i havent tried the same with KClO3 but as KMnO4 usually is a stronger oxidizer wouldnt that be at least same sensitivity to shock used as a secondary?

Vikascoder - 3-6-2013 at 04:55

Do some research there is a thread already on this form

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=19712#...

Fantasma4500 - 3-6-2013 at 06:36

true.. as stated above i have read through it..
but i think its mentioned a billion times too little
i found it that KClO3 wasnt even capable of oxidizing oil
i heat it so much the oil infact DECOMPOSED and left solid KClO3 / KClO4 / KCl where KMnO4 easily oxidized it as with glycerine but was more stable and needed to be heated abit first (probably too much oil used, 0.05g test size only)

AndersHoveland - 3-6-2013 at 09:32

Remember, while the first oxygens come off very easily, not all the rest of the oxygens in the molecule come of as easily. This is similar to many of our uninformed members speculating that K2S2O8 would be a good pyrotechnic oxidizer in past threads. KMnO4 is also much more chemically reactive, probably would not be very compatible with most fuels in a pyrotechnic mixture.

the relevant equivalent reaction would be: 2 KMnO4 --> K2O + 2 MnO2 + 3 O
So we can see that only 37.5 percent of the oxygen is easily available. In contrast, with KClO3, 100 percent of the oxygen is available.

Fantasma4500 - 4-6-2013 at 10:07

mhm yes i see that, but against the theoretical it didnt oxidize the least
also on stability.. i havent sensitivity or shock tested it as not only hammering it would make alot of noise for where i live, but hammering followed by a bang would probably yield some knocking on my door.. (:
KMnO4 + oil needed a little bit heat (torch lighter) before it would ignite and burn pretty well
i see it as being stable by standard conditions as in not handling it with hammers

after all, the K2O and MnO2 might be more reactive when you introduce much higher temperature aswell as pressure

by any means it could lead to that you would need to use a large amount of KMnO4 as you do with KMnO4 and Al (8:2 by weight) but.. it would work..
and probably very well
again.. its easy to get a hold of which is the important

Trotsky - 11-6-2013 at 22:38

While KMnO4 doesn't have a whole lot of oxygen to give up, it is highly reactive. That may make it useful in other mixtures.

This thread should be titled KMnO4 based Sprengel Explosives, since cheddites refer to a very narrow range of oxidizer plus fuel blends.

My idea was to take a aluminum heavy Ammonal blend (say, 15 percent, though you could work out the optimum ratio) and add the appropriate amount of KMNO4.

The oxygen liberated from the ammonium nitrate and the permanganate are all available to oxidize aluminum, sure. However, the excess aluminum is available to form an MnO2-based thermite. This will generate tons of heat in the reaction. There should be plenty of heat available to get the reaction going, since as I understand the material is present as a plasma at the reaction front.

I assume I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I can't find another reference to it, so if I am the first, I hereby name it hammiltonite. Lol

I have tried a few permanganate blends, but mainly for their ability to be bullet initiated, and had very limited success.

That said, I'm particularly interested in the following:
1) AN/Al/KMnO4
2) KMnO4 / Al -> this should allow 100% of the oxygen present to be utilized, and take advantage of the permanganate's high reactivity and the very high reaction temp of the MnO2/Al which may be useful in some circumstances.
3) KMnO4 / ANFO. This was a blend I was trying to make bullet sensitive. There are special considerations with this. It can't be made up ahead of time as the permanganate will start oxidizing the fuel oil immediately, and ammonium permanganate will also start forming. This is supposedly a sensitive primary, but my attempts with it had little success. You'd expect enough to be formed to initiate the charge by bullet. The only thing I can suggest is that they needed to be mixed longer.

I have since made a mix and just let it sit. I made very little and its being kept safely, but despite claims of autoinitiation from adding a .5% solution of KMnO4 to AN caused an explosion after 12 hours if I remember correctly. Maybe it was 5%. It seemed way too low, but whatever.

I have used KMnO4+Polyethylene+ large aluminum flakes in a Roman Candle type pyrotechnic device, recently actually because I wanted to test the idea of an in situ formed MnO2 thermite. I used large flakes because I wanted to ensure that the permanganate want reacting directly with the aluminum.

This was sat on a thin steel sheet to see if it'd make through. Sure enough, it melted a hole through it rapidly. The reason proceeded in a fairly binary form. The plastic reacted very fast, making the usual purple-ish flame, which after 30 seconds or so turned into a bright white flame that threw up lots of white sparks. It probably would have lasted longer, but the steel melted and most of it fell down into the water in the bucket below it.

At one point, for a few seconds I pondered adding sulfuric acid to sensitize it during my attempts at a bullet sensitive mix. I'm very, very glad I thought better of it...

Trotsky - 11-6-2013 at 22:59

Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat

mhm yes i see that, but against the theoretical it didnt oxidize the least
also on stability.. i havent sensitivity or shock tested it as not only hammering it would make alot of noise for where i live, but hammering followed by a bang would probably yield some knocking on my door.. (:
KMnO4 + oil needed a little bit heat (torch lighter) before it would ignite and burn pretty well
i see it as being stable by standard conditions as in not handling it with hammers

after all, the K2O and MnO2 might be more reactive when you introduce much higher temperature aswell as pressure

by any means it could lead to that you would need to use a large amount of KMnO4 as you do with KMnO4 and Al (8:2 by weight) but.. it would work..
and probably very well
again.. its easy to get a hold of which is the important

I didn't see this when I posted that previous post. MnO2 is definitely reactive. It's a commonly used oxidizer, though it's not quite as useful.

As for its stability- testing it with a hammer may be interesting to see if you can get it to pop. I doubt it. Anyway, the issue with stability in most mixtures- those without ammonium nitrate- won't come from accidental detonation. It will come primarily from fire. Given time the KMnO4 will start oxidizing most molecules, especially if they contain many hydroxyl groups (sugar, for one), you don't need to add any heat to start the reaction. The reaction will produce heat, and if there's enough material present it'll autoignite.

Vikascoder - 12-6-2013 at 01:18

Well ammonium nitrate and potassium permanganate gives ammonium permanganate which is a sensitive primary

[Edited on 13-6-2013 by Vikascoder]

Fantasma4500 - 12-6-2013 at 11:44

well using it as a sentisizer might work, i know it very very surely works for flashpowders

KMnO4 + MgAl of an unknown proportion coming close to 60:40 doesnt ignite easily
when ferrocerium is added it goes loudly bang in small amounts, very very easily selfconfines and not least of all ignites straight away by flame

but KMnO4 + oil would that actually oxidize it..??
seems i might wanna run some tests on this thing as it could be kinda vital for the use of it, yes?

not quiete sure if i can actually change the thread name tho

anyways ammonal as in AN/Al is of what i remember used usually in 95:5 ratio just to sentisize it, but 82:18 is the best OB ratio for AN/Al and heard it worked so to say

anyways you mentioned some pyrotechnic device of some sort with al flakes in it... are you sure these arent the ones called ''icefountains'' which is titanium flakes in nitrocellulose powder?

also on the NH4MnO4
its as i remember it relatively safe, i didnt initiate it by a hammer, but i used tiny amounts and im doing it inside with more than plenty people around me so im pretty limited, when ignited it runs around like tiny little rockets producing some strangely smelling gas and some brown stuff (MnO2?)

NH4MnO4 could plausibly be used to sentisize ammonium nitrate, i had approx 10g AN with NH4MnO4 impurites but failed it and had to throw it away sadly, but the idea is very likely of that it would sentisize it..

Metacelsus - 12-6-2013 at 14:33

I find a few % KMnO4 is useful in pyrotechnic compositions to speed up the burn rate. I can't tell if it has any effect on cheddite, other than making craters pink.

Fantasma4500 - 13-6-2013 at 11:37

you know what guys.. i think ill go take a nap some day, and then ill dream about 10g KClO3 cheddite with food oil, thereafter 10g KMnO4 cheddite (assuming 90:10 oxidizer:food oil would be well working)
with 1g initiation of good brisance

Ral123 - 13-6-2013 at 11:56

If you don't dream about good confinement also, you may as well dream about 10 of sand with "1g initiation of good brisance"

Trotsky - 13-6-2013 at 23:16

I don't mean to nitpick, but again, this isn't a cheddite, it's a sprengel explosive.

Let us know how it goes.

I'm going to try the following:

1.6lb AN + .4lb KMnO4 + .15lb Kerosene. Detonated with .5lb tannerite initiated by .223 Rem @ 50 yards.

1.5lb KMnO4 + .18lb Kerosene. Detonated in the same manner described above.

Tannerite - .5lb with 5% KMnO4 added (the idea here to see if the hypothesized thermite reaction works out favorably)

Tannerite - .5lb to act as a control. I also have a small bottle of ammonium nitrate blended with 5% nitrokerosene and a small percentage of nitrostarch. That could be initiated with this, with little impact.

I also blended AN and KMnO4 three days ago that I'm waiting to shoot. Hopefully it'll work better than my last attempt which was made immediately prior and only partially detonated.

Fantasma4500 - 14-6-2013 at 05:19

AN and KMnO4..?? sounds strange man.. wouldnt you need to boil it together to get it to actually work..? (:
thats some quite big amounts actually, but do you think tannerite is a reliable initiation source?
but yes i will have some sprenggel dreams, with good confinement, i mean i cant always control what i dream about can i..?

Trotsky - 14-6-2013 at 21:49

I dunno about it as an initiator but it has a high enough vod and a half pound should be plenty to initiate ANFO sensitized with KMnO4.

AN and KMnO4 should work fine together. They're not intended t. However Ihave already discussed my plain KMnO4 and AN blendsthat were supposed to produce ammonium permanganate in situ to make abullet sensitive explosive. It mostly didn't work because too little time blended or maybe Ineeded to add water and later dry. They react with each other when simply in contact.

I should try just plain KMnO4 together with kerosene as a ANFO analogue.

AndersHoveland - 16-6-2013 at 08:04

Quote: Originally posted by Trotsky

While KMnO4 doesn't have a whole lot of oxygen to give up, it is highly reactive. That may make it useful in other mixtures.

Not really. If you just want a fast reaction rate, much better to just use KBrO3. It has a low decomposition temperature, and even before then is very reactive when hot.

Trotsky - 16-6-2013 at 10:24

I tried ANFO+20% KMnO4 (with the AN and permanganate allowed to sit for 24 hours before use to allow more ammonium permanganate to form. The addition of the FO wasn't until immediately before detonation, and because of extreme mosquitoes I think I added a little more than I should have.

I've never seen mosquitoes like this. They were in thick clouds like you sometimes see gnats, but much larger clouds of bigger bugs.

Anyway!

Tannerite easily detonated this. I've never shot more than 1lb tannerite at a time, and altogether this was almost 3.5lbs of high explosive. I hit it on my first shot (because I'm awesome like this) and the boom, even with ear plugs in, made my ears ring. That was impressive.

However, in the bottom of the crater it made there were some ammonium nitrate pellets. I suspect that the excess fuel oil pooled at the bottom and prevented it from reacting. If only a few grams didn't detonate, though, I can live with that.

Fantasma4500 - 16-6-2013 at 10:50

hm hm hm.. very interesting.. why dont you film these things man?
you could try an earlier suggested mix of CuO + NH4NO3 where its heated together to form anh. TACN and also the rest of the CuO acting as a catalyst..
but that tannerite with such minimal initiation can go actually HE (i guess its still about VoD here, the lowest VoD of what ive heard is 4000 m/s, can it exceed that..?)

had 1.1kg i tried initiating with 26.5g FP
it went bang, but only bang as 26.5g.. very very very dissapointed, i found not that much on the ground of the stuff that didnt go off, keep in mind most of this wont be pinned to the ground so more than just a few grammes didnt go off, anyways how far away were you?
0.5g of true HE can and will at 10 metres distance in the right conditions give you ringing ears

also Anders, dont you think thats more a dream chemical to use?

doesnt sound easy to get a hold of and bulk quanities would be just.. a no go

potassium bromate.. ive seen it in the schools lab a few times IIRC tho
would be only good for initiation source if any

but trotsky why dont you try to make pure NH4MnO4 and then lay straws filled with the stuff inside your charge? it should run like detcord. if initiated properly
also try AN:Sugar 85:15 by weight, both powder
its more powerful than ANFO and easier to initiate..

Fantasma4500 - 16-6-2013 at 10:52

btw just got to think about another thing.. the FO is supposedly non-polar (all FO's ive heard of are)
how would this allow the AN to react with the KMnO4??

if you wetten it with say 5% H2O or less to create a very dense slurry you could let it sit for 24H
and the bullet impact should be increased due to the density increased due to its wetness so it should absorb more energy
hope you understand what i just said

Trotsky - 16-6-2013 at 11:18

The fuel oil isn't added until minutes before use. The AN and KMNO4 are together for 24 plus hours

Fantasma4500 - 23-6-2013 at 08:21

anyways i can confirm that its possible to set off
in the last moment i dreamt about vaseline instead of food oil, as it showed up to be much more easy to ignite

ive tested KMnO4 with vaseline, and it flared up very violently
90:10 ratio by weight

10g in my dream removed the grass under a big log, where KClO3 based was making a very loud crack, same test site wasnt used.. you know you just cant control your dreams that well, can you?

plante1999 - 23-6-2013 at 08:32

A dream is not reality, if people continue to say that they dream that clear I will post something in forum mater about it. Tired of people dreaming so clearly about chemistry.

Ral123 - 23-6-2013 at 08:43

His dreams tend to follow the laws on nature...
How did you set it off?

Vikascoder - 23-6-2013 at 09:15

Come to reality be practical don't just dream . In energetic chemistry your first mistake can be your last mistake stay careful and be practical then post ur experience

Fantasma4500 - 23-6-2013 at 14:40

Quote: Originally posted by plante1999

A dream is not reality, if people continue to say that they dream that clear I will post something in forum mater about it. Tired of people dreaming so clearly about chemistry.

yeah but a dream can seem so much more than real, it can be even more intense than reality, im sure you have experienced this aswell
anyways whats the problem with it, why cant you just dream along?

plante1999 - 23-6-2013 at 15:39

Telling people you dream of energetic, is not easily believable, and if you try everything from your dreams, you will soon see it was not a good idea!

Fantasma4500 - 25-6-2013 at 15:04

Quote: Originally posted by plante1999

Telling people you dream of energetic, is not easily believable, and if you try everything from your dreams, you will soon see it was not a good idea!

i suggest that my dreams are superior to your dreams when it comes to reality (;

Trotsky - 28-6-2013 at 20:05

I've had dreams about energetics many times. Real dreams, not fake ones.

Anyway, I'd be careful about making pure ammonium permanganate I've seen reports of spontaneous detonation. If that's not true it'd be a little less scary.

I'm not a big fan of large quantities of primary explosives.

I am a big fan of tannerite like explosives which are insensitive unless you whack them with lead going faster than sound.

I'd like to see a permanganate based tannerite analogue.

Perhaps I should try a Cupric Oxide / Al thermite -> NH4NO3/Al -> KMnO4+Sucrose

I think KMnO4 might work better with sugar too because just mixing them dry will oxidize the sugar. It'll work best with any polyol, I think.

AndersHoveland - 28-6-2013 at 22:51

Quote: Originally posted by Trotsky

I'd like to see a permanganate based tannerite analogue.

Why? I have already explained that, for pyrotechnic compositions, permanganate would be a worse oxidizer than perchlorate.

Do you realize that ammonium permanganate is a sensitive, fairly unstable explosive?

Another thing you may not have considered is that permanganate leaves behind dirty black MnO2 stains. It is very messy, and the fumes from such a pyrotechnic combustion would be very bad to breathe.

[Edited on 29-6-2013 by AndersHoveland]

Trotsky - 29-6-2013 at 10:12

Why? To see if it's possible and because it's cheaper and available very pure.

I still believe that with enough Al the MnO2 will react to act as a thermite.

As far as inhaling manganese compounds, I'm well aware of the dangers. I'm intimately familiar with them you might say. I'm slowly developing muscle problems due to many tests with permanganate based rocket motors. It's no fun and I'm far too young for this problem but what is done is done.

That said, I doubt any real risk from detonating a permanganate explosive at 100 yards with a .223. The gunpowder and lead surely presents greater risks.

I suppose manganese poisoning is better than lead poisoning. I won't go insane

Fantasma4500 - 29-6-2013 at 10:57

ammonium permanganate should be handled with respect, such as all other compounds you are not familiar with, and have potentially dangerous properties
its measured to be slightly more sensitive to shock than ETN is
when its ignited it just flies around like tiny rockets
as anders says MnO2 is very messy

but again the idea of KMnO4 as HE Oxidizer would be that its commonly available, and a strong oxidizer.. i have mixed up KMnO4 with sugar and i didnt really see any reaction..
however KMnO4 and ascorbic acid is another thing, tho it also needs a tiny bit of water

btw about muscle problems.. what do you mean by that..? degenerating muscles or such? weaker muscles? could be worth noting down.. doesnt sound good.. o:

Trotsky - 29-6-2013 at 19:04

Google manganism. It's a sort of parkinsonian condition, degenerative, that continues progressing long after exposure is ceased (a decade plus) and for which l dopa is minimally effective. I've gotten no benefit from it. I do notice benefits from anticholinergics. Benadryl is a surprising relief, cheap and readily available.

Trotsky - 29-6-2013 at 19:05

With the KMnO4 and sugar, it'll turn black over a few hours. It's not at all rapid.