Common Acronyms

Here shall be an alphabetically sorted collection of commonly used acronyms (NOT chemical formulas) and slang prevalent on ScienceMadness and in the indiechem community.

A

AA—"Acetic acid" or "Acetic anhydride"

AgNTz—"Silver nitrotetrazole"

Amateur Chemistry—Those studying of chemistry as a hobby, usually at home.

AN—"Ammonium nitrate"

AP—"Ammonium perchlorate"

AQBC—"Aminoguanidine bicarbonate", see: Guanidine

ASA—"Acetylsalicylic acid"

ATz, sometimes 5-ATz, "5-Aminotetrazole"

C

CA—"Cyanuric acid"

CHP—"Copper hexamine perchlorate", a complex salt of copper(II)-, hexamine and perchlorate-ions. Term coined by Dr. Liptakov.

D

DBX-1—"Copper(I) 5‐nitrotetrazolate", sometimes called "CuNTz" (this however is more of an inside joke by Tdep)

DCM—"Dichloromethane"

DDT—"Deflagration to detonation transition" OR [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

"Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane"]

E

EM—"Energetic Materials"

ETN—"Erythritol tetranitrate"

G

GC—"Gun Cotton." See Nitrocellulose

H

HMTD—"Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine"

I

Indiechem—"Indie Chemistry;" another term for "amateur chemistry," coined by Texium

K

Kewls

M

MEK—"Methyl ethyl ketone"

MEKP—"Methyl ethyl ketone peroxide"

N

NaNTz—"Sodium nitrotetrazole"

NC—"Nitrocellulose"

NM—"Nitromethane"

NQ—"Nitroguanidine"

P

PETN—"Pentaerythritol tetranitrate"

R

RFNA—"Red fuming nitric acid", very concentrated nitric acid with a lot of NOx dissolved in it, which gives the acid a reddish color.

S

SADS—"Silver Acetylide Double Salt"

T

TATP—"Triacetone triperoxide." See: acetone peroxide

TACP or TACPs—"Tetraaminecopper(II) persulphate"

TACN—"Tetraaminecopper(II) nitrate"

TCCA—"Trichloroisocyanuric acid"

TNP—"Trinitrophenol" See: Picric acid

TNT—"Trinitrotoluene"

U

UTFSE— "Use the f***ing search engine," generally used when the answer can be found quite easily with a simple search.

W

Whimsy— a subsection of the Science Madness forum dedicated to subjects unrelated to chemistry or indiechem.

WFNA—"White fuming nitric acid", very concentrated nitric acid with little to no NOx contamination.