minkify - 6-7-2010 at 12:50
has anyone here had any joy with watergel/slurry explosives ? anything from peroxide to nitroaromatics ?
it's a shame that thread had died.
Anders Hoveland - 9-7-2010 at 09:52
The peroxide of acetone does not form complimentary mixtures with NH4NO3. One might think this would have a good oxygen balance, be easy to make, but
it seemed as virtually impossible to set off as ANFO. The peroxide does not attack the amonium ion, but does oxidize ammonia. Using mostly AP and a
little NH4NO3 to enrich it, only made fireballs that bursted out the AN prills mostly unreacted. I suspect that even if it was properly detonated, the
use of AP would make it only a little more powerful than if plain vegetable oil were used. 4g of AP exploding were unable to set off a mixture of AN
and 30% CH3NO2 in CH3OH.
I had an idea to use 60% H2O2 solution, a little bit of ethylene gylcol, and dissolve all the NH4NO3 that could be dissolved. AN is highly soluble in
water.
150 g/100 ml (20 °C)
297 g/100 ml (40 °C)
410 g/100 ml (60 °C)
576 g/100 ml (80 °C)
1024 g/100 ml (100 °C)
Perhaps heating the mixture to 80C right before detonation could dissolve the maximum ammount of AN. Note how extremely soluble AN is It would likely
have similar solubility in H2O2. It is also fairly soluble in ethylene glycol. The advantage of this mixture as that the AN would get completely mixed
with the fuel, meaning the reaction rate of the burn off of the fuel by the N2O (created by AN decomp) would be high. Still, at room temperature, H2O2
would be the main oxidizer, since the ammount of AN that can dissolve is limited. Glycerine could be used instead of ethylene glycol. Water can be
frozen out of H2O2 by freezing, but I think this can only easily obtain around 65% H2O2 solution, before the H2O2 starts crystalling out, leaving the
remaining water in solution.
The reason AN is added, is that it is better than the 60% diluted H2O2. I think I calculated that at room temperature in the described mixture, only a
fourth of the oxygen supplied would come from AN.