Sciencemadness Discussion Board

EGDN decomposition- safely?

Fantasma4500 - 20-3-2023 at 20:31

hi, so i noticed most people dunk their nitration mix in water- which seems really stupid to me since the nitrate ester is already at the bottom of the nitration mix, i dont recall seeing additional stuff coming out once dunking it in water, if i put 20mL EG in i get 20mL nitrate ester back out again, practically 100%
so, that leaves me with some kinda ... 80% H2SO4 with some nitric still in it- this could be recycled for sure. but im not a fan of heating a strong acid with energetic stuck inside of it to 100*C
any ideas of how to get rid of potential remains? NG for instance becomes unstable over time in acid and gets exponentially dangerous- does it ever fully degrade without going off on its own when stored in strong acid?

ManyInterests - 23-3-2023 at 22:28

I don't know about EGDN, but for NG (and probably EGDN as well) you need to wash away all excess acids if you have any plans for storing it (which is not a good idea anyway). But NG if prepared properly and cleaned of all remaining acids can last a very long time. Someone on this forum mentioned that there was a bottle of NG found that was over 100 years old and showed no signs of degradation due no nitric or sulfuric acids being present.

Why would you store NG in strong acid anyway? NG was the primary ingredient in making smokeless propellants from the late 19th century until fairly recently when they're finding safer alternatives. This is why I don't want to make NG and go for DEGDN instead.

Fantasma4500 - 27-3-2023 at 02:14

im not sure how this can be misunderstood, im interested in using the acids instead of dunking it down the toilet

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safety-chart-for-spent-a...

i guess ill have to answer my own question with some vague graphs that only entails it can be potentially dangerous to heat acids from nitration mixes to 70*C

if i boil acids from EGDN nitration will it blow up???

Fantasma4500 - 13-4-2023 at 08:22

it seems i have gotten my answer! heat the acid and let it decompose the nitro compounds, it heats up to about 49*C on its own where it will steadily decompose
its already dropping down to 46*C implying that the reaction is dying down, decomposition is completing itself- when the nitro-compounds remains have been removed prior then its only very small amounts that are in the mix
i suppose, adding in excess glycol would help to absorb the leftover nitric acid

adding in cellulose could also work, however it would tend to gel up with the liquid nitrocompounds, i guess nitrocellulose turning into a gel would be a way to test if there is nitroesters present already

seems worst case scenario for smaller amounts of the acid mix is to go runoff rather than explode, meaning its decently safe to handle, discounting the fact that its a very dilute solution of a powerful and extra sensitive compound