Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Napalm and alternatives

tito-o-mac - 14-7-2007 at 02:00

Heres something easy to formulate, yes, its sticky, it burns at high temperatures and it been used in the Vietnam War.

It's Napalm!

Besides the simple old gasoline + thickener formula, does anyone here know more on other combinations of gasoline + thickener solutions or alternatives? Does adding in an oxidixer improve results of Napalm? Aren't there
alternatives besides thermite for other incediary chemicals?

sparkgap - 14-7-2007 at 04:37

Post less. Lurk more. Seriously.
Quote:
Originally posted by Polverone
Napalm is not exotic enough to qualify for discussion here. As a rule, we don't discuss weapons, unless there is something novel or exotic about their chemistry. Napalm is well-documented, though a lot of misinformation circulates on the web.


sparky (~_~)

Sauron - 14-7-2007 at 04:40

There are many many variations on thermite. There have already been many threads dealing with these and with posted attachments of their formulas.

No need to start another.

Napalm was developed by Professor Louis Feiser, same man as editor of the famous series "Reagents for Organic Synthesis". It is an aluminized soap of napthenic and palmitic acids (hence the name.)

Thermites are useful tools in metallurgy.

So there's a reason to study them outside of their military utility.

Napalm has no peacetime application that I am aware of. It was designed to be a more effective aerial-delivered incendiary than what was already in use, particularly against densely populated targets with dwellings mostly made of wood and paper (such as major Japanese cities.)

So honestly, the chemistry is not very interesting (you would do better to learn about detergents and surfactants)

[Edited on 14-7-2007 by Sauron]

Polverone - 14-7-2007 at 08:53

We don't really discuss weapons (or major components of weapons) here unless there's some interesting chemistry behind them. I've made the personal judgment that there are few upsides, and many downsides, to discussing napalm on an amateur chemistry forum.