Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Preparation of ammonium azide

Phycoty - 17-10-2019 at 11:14

Synthesis of Ammonium Azide
Hello!
This is my first post on the forum I am realatively new to EM but I have made lead azide and silver azide. I am looking into the production of ammonium azide, as it is said to be more stable. I was able to find one reference to it at the link above but am wondering if the synthesis could be completed in some sort of solvent heated to 190 degrees rather than hot air.

(any criticisms of my posting methods are wanted I need to get better)
(edit: format)

[Edited on 10-17-2019 by Phycoty]

Metacelsus - 18-10-2019 at 04:28

The product is isolated by sublimation (which seems a bit crazy to me, to be honest). Reacting them in a solvent wouldn't allow this.

wessonsmith - 19-10-2019 at 06:59

Welcome to the forum. If you are new to EM, then I suggest that you forget about messing with sensitive and reactive primaries and secondaries and learn to make modern and safer EM's. I, too, recently got into EM's and came here and read a lot of the forums and then did a lot of research online before I decided on the direction I wanted to go.

Take your time and understand everything there is about the EM's you want to make. What do they react with, how sensitive are they to external stimuli, how toxic are the precursors (Sodium Azide). I spent many months gathering information before I decided on my main focus, Nickle Hydrazine Nitrate(NHN), and Eryrithol Tetranitrate(ETN). I have experimented with other substances like Sodium Nitrotetrazole(NaNTz), MHN, Nitorgylcerin, etc. but found that ETN and NHN gave me the best bang for my money.

Good luck, and have fun while being safe!

XeonTheMGPony - 21-10-2019 at 03:35

Lead Azide is industry standard and when handled correctly is quite stable and safe for being what it is.

I use 80 PVA-lead azide to 20 lead Styphnate, I prefer the PVA modifier over Dextrin as it makes it much more stable due to much lower propensity to interact with water.

As to safety, it is a mind set, the safest thing on earth will kill you if you do not behave correctly around it.

If you go with this do use good shielding around the tube furnace and make sure you won't miss it, those temps are in the "safe" range for LA but it is def a high risk synth.

[Edited on 21-10-2019 by XeonTheMGPony]

Rosco Bodine - 24-10-2019 at 09:03

Quote: Originally posted by wessonsmith  
Welcome to the forum. If you are new to EM, then I suggest that you forget about messing with sensitive and reactive primaries and secondaries and learn to make modern and safer EM's. I, too, recently got into EM's and came here and read a lot of the forums and then did a lot of research online before I decided on the direction I wanted to go.

Take your time and understand everything there is about the EM's you want to make. What do they react with, how sensitive are they to external stimuli, how toxic are the precursors (Sodium Azide). I spent many months gathering information before I decided on my main focus, Nickle Hydrazine Nitrate(NHN), and Eryrithol Tetranitrate(ETN). I have experimented with other substances like Sodium Nitrotetrazole(NaNTz), MHN, Nitorgylcerin, etc. but found that ETN and NHN gave me the best bang for my money.

Good luck, and have fun while being safe!


The most promising detonator development of interest to the energetic materials hobbyist that I have seen after many years (50+) research is the nickel and probably also the copper aminoguanidine perchlorate initiating explosive, as a likely stable combination with a guanidine perchlorate base charge. By virtue of the perchlorate this combination would be excluded from the rigid specification for "green energetic material" but in my opinion should probably be an allowable *exception*, where detonation byproduct trace chloride residue would cause no issue....such as mining and demolition uses where no corrosive residue worries would apply. This combination is accessible to synthesis from OTC materials, and should be storage stable indefinitely, and would not require exacting press loading schemes to implement and should work fine as a firing train in a poly culture tube at low press loading and requiring no reinforcing cap or strong confinement....basically being a "high tech magnum firecracker" that should high order detonate every time with sufficient impulse to convince any even insensitive surrounding secondary EM charge to high order detonate as well.

Tsjerk - 24-10-2019 at 10:17

Can you prepare or get barium/calcium azide? With sulfuric acid that will give a solution of hydrazoic acid which reacts with ammonia.

No high temperatures and the product is not volatile nor hygroscopic. So patience would give you the product without heating.