Perchlorate compositions

Glycine perchlorate is another possibility that has occured to me . Depending on the solubility , and I suspect this would work ....you could make a strong solution of glycine nitrate which is highly soluble and mix this with a saturated hot solution of ammonium perchlorate , and
hopefully ( possibly ) a precipitate of glycine perchlorate would result by double decomposition .
Of course if the glycine perchlorate is like urea perchlorate
which is extremely soluble this may not happen .

An alternate approach which may be better is to make a paste of glycine with a little water , add with stirring sufficient d1.4 nitric acid to neutralize the slurry and while still hot add solid ammonium perchlorate to the still hot paste , keeping it hot if necessary while continuing to stir the mixture until reaction is complete . This should force the reaction if the solubility of the glycine perchlorate is
high enough to cause problems with the first method .

The reaction should hopefully proceed by one of these methods , and the glycine perchlorate should be a
powerful explosive somewhere between picric acid and tetryl , probably more sensitive , and the hygroscopic
properties are unknown . I couldn't find any references to
glycine perchlorate , but the nitrate has been reported here in this group .

A similar reaction might proceed for hexamine dinitrate
and ammonium perchlorate , although the temperature
and time of reaction would be of consequence due to
the thermal instability of hexamine salts .

Double salts or sensitive mixtures could result from any of these reactions even if a precipitate does not occur ,
so drying to a residue and testing the residue mixture
should be part of the plan even if no obvious precipitate
appears .

Also a paste of urea nitrate and ammonium perchlorate
would likely result in a powerful mixture but this one is known to be hygroscopic . However it would form a powerful
slurry or perhaps a binary component of a melt having other
ingredients . It would be hard to get it dry and keep it dry
but of course it would be detonable that way too and it would be more powerful than the mixtures using only nitrates .

And then there is the possibility of Betaine Perchlorate
from the nitrate of Betaine .... lots of possibilities .

[Edited on 29-7-2006 by Rosco Bodine]

I have some Trioxane which is the trimer of formaldhyde. The creation of formit requires a 37% solution of formaldhyde and ammonium nitrate. I wonder if the usage of water could be avoided and instead molten Trioxane could be subsituted in? Trioxane is the only OTC source of formaldhyde I have.


@ the glycine idea. If all else fails you could find a eutetic mixture of Ammonium Nitrate/Perchlorate and glycine that melts at a lower temperature than 65C unless Ammonium Perchlorate eutectic mixtures are unaffected by the decompisition point of 65C.

@ marsh....
I hear that Amines and Ammonium compounds sensitize explosive mixtures of nitromethane. I can't personaly comment on this because I haven't made Nitromethane explosives before...

Ammonium Perchlorate has the lowest solubility of any Ammonium compounds in water that I am aware of. Your better off with Nitromethane, the suggested perchlorate compounds by Rosco, or possible Ammonium perchlorate eutectics. If you had Ammonium Nitrate or Sodium Perchlorate slurry based explosives would probably be a better choice.

[Edited on 29-7-2006 by DeAdFX]

Quote:

Originally posted by DeAdFX I have some Trioxane which is the trimer of formaldhyde. The creation of formit requires a 37% solution of formaldhyde and ammonium nitrate. I wonder if the usage of water could be avoided and instead molten Trioxane could be subsituted in? Trioxane is the only OTC source of formaldhyde I have.

I have CuO, and 200 mic NH4ClO4. I will mix up some batches (with detonator holes cast) to be attempted tomorrow.

I am into HPR myself; I never have understood the "banning" of AP as I personally have never once seen it used as explosive. Well whatever the gov't *tries* to do, I can assure they will never impede on my ability to continue experimental AP motors (the bastards can try, I'm stocked for life ). I have donated to this legal fund, and from what I have heard the BATF has so far poorly backed their side of the arguement in the courtroom. I'm really not too concerned as I don't think we'll lose.

Anyways to the point...I don't think there is anyway you could have det'd that G80 grain...being that it is probably >18% binder.

I don't have any PETN ready at the moment, but I will try 2.5g acetone peroxide on the following plastic mixture:

3% HTPB
1% CuO
7% Al
89% NH4ClO4

Then, same proportions of solids with 5% and 10% binder amounts in exchange for perchlorate (which will almost surely be too insensitive at this point).

I will post results as they cure, hopefully by tomorrow night.

[Edited on 8-8-2006 by Marsh]

NH4ClO4/TCAP/MEKP Success...

Well, the above mentioned combination sure as heck worked alright.

I started by the dual synthesis of TCAP in MEKP, with there being more MEKP product (should have been approximately 2:3 TCAP:MEKP). Of coarse you could simply add the TCAP to the MEKP, but I did it this way to kill two birds with one stone.

My MEKP this morning was very clear with just a slight white haze, and all MEK had evaporated out after getting it to about 95% last night.

I used a NH4ClO4:TCAP/MEKP ratio of 80:20, which I now believe could have been possibly 85:15 for more brisance. I arrived at this assuming a -150% oxygen balance from MEKP, so a correction may be in store if I'm off.

Cap used was about 2.5g TCAP (det in the photo is partially stuffed with kleanex, not full), and full-detonation occurred, with a very nice boom (but heck what doesn't have a nice boom...).

The total charge weight was 250g. As you can see I placed it into a cup, and set this inside the corner of a very heavy steel mining bucket. The steel in the very corner was a combination of layers up to 1" total thickness which it bent out. I really need to aquire some flat steel plate from somewhere, to test this against ANFO etc without confining the charge in the bucket. It would seem this stuff would nearly have to be much more powerful than ANFO, with the available fuel/oxygen content. I guess the main competitor would be ANNMSA or ANNM/Xylol. By the way, I only gave this about 10 minutes to sit after mixing as more rain was coming.

I will make more MEKP tonight, and test some other batches over the next few days, I'll try the other bucket corner next with 85:15.

Video: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnB0F1Wk1lk"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnB0F1Wk1lk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="350"></embed></object>

85:15

Alright, for some reason I thought that the little dent the charge made earlier was high and mighty...

I decided I had to go back out tonight once the rain let up and test another charge, this time using a more correct 84:16 ratio for higher brisance.

This was a night and day difference. The charge completely mangled the steel surrounding it. The 1/4" thick base it sat on was easily penetrated and is gone.

I hate to make assumptions so quickly, but this stuff seems pretty darned powerful...possibly more than ANNMSA (the support bars this bent were 3/4" steel). I really need to do a plate test between them at this point.

The charge was slightly larger this time, at 285g (I decided to throw in the remaining bit left), but as you can see, the extra 35g was little in the whole perspective here.

It was again mixed and packed into a plastic cup, detonated with 2.5g TCAP.





[Edited on 11-8-2006 by Marsh]

I managed to try this composition in a shaped charge tonight.

This charge had almost no confinement (plastic cup), and used a very mediocre means of a liner cone...a plastic rocket nose.

I can not get ahold of any copper cones, so I figured all I could do would be to try a design which more than likely wouldn't produce results, but just might.

Well needless to say, the results look promising. I used 200g total ammonium perchlorate/MEKP, at 85:15. It achieved almost 7mm of crater depth, at around 27mm max diameter. The plastic cone used was about this diameter, and about 35mm tall. Standoff was 30mm. There wasn't much overhead above the cone tip, so the wave may not have leveled.

Regardless, from a charge which in my opinion would have done nothing with an AN mixture, this achieved penetration. I believe with the use of a copper liner, this should easily be a composition suitable for shaped charges.

Since I cannot produce any copper cones myself, would someone out there be willing to test this composition who does have them? I have reason to believe vod's may be quite high, and I have interests in finding out if this is indeed true.

Well, the munroe forces alone decrease rapidly with standoff, and he did use almost 1 CD space between cone and target. I was surprised to see the crater at all and I don't think kinepack would have had the same effect with such a standoff. Then again, maybe the plastic did contribute in tranferring some more energy to the target than with no liner. Looking at the crater it looks like there has been a good focus of the liner, but the low mass (density) of the plastic would make any possible jet rather low in energy, thus not penetrating very deep.
Since it is obvious though that plastic does not make for a good liner, try one of your charges without any standoff. 10 mm charges pressed with 2 grams of PETN made this way (no liner, zero standoff) bang through 6 mm steel plate easily. For larger charges, high brisance explosives can do almost 1 CD of penetration. I don't think it will perform like that though since the VoD of your mixture will be alot lower, it would however be a good indication of brisance. I think that addition of the 5% of MEKP may not boost the brisance by higher density or energy content, but more by reducing critical diameter for a high VoD a bit.

Some more people were asking how to cut the lightbulbs properly since the flame engulfes almost the whole lighbulb. The solution however is very simple, turn the lightbulb upside down so that the flames only touch the downside, which you will dispose anyway.

[Edited on 14-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

So I did a quick web search to come up with some Vod's on AP compostions, there seems to be some info about this in the Rogue forum. Well gee what do you know, I have a user name there, and have not attempted even 1 post, I get there and am greeted with a message: BANNED. Reason:

Wow this is a great forum, you get banned for posting or not posting...does anyone know how that large of an object got up NBK's ass?

Oh well, cookies cleared and I'm in...got some info saying that pure NH4ClO4 detonates at around 3677m/s, although actual without voids should be near 4000m/s.

While at the same time a 65:25:10 AP/Al/Acetic acid will give 6900m/s.

Lactic acid replacing acetic will det at over 7000m/s.

These results look promising for AP compositions. I do have quite a few pounds of Al powder, maybe I could try something a bit different, possibly using this (AP/MEKP) mixture as a booster.

[Edited on 15-8-2006 by Marsh]

Those AP comps are highly dense, with the acetic filling the voids? I was surprised myself of the brisance a *melt/cast* AN mix showed compared to the usual ANxx. See the pic of a 5mm steel plate on which was placed a 22mm cylinder of AN/HDN/UN/NaN. It is not so much that it *did* penetrate, but the cleanly punched hole with no bending of the edges.

Unfortunately you cannot melt AP, at least there is no eutectic I know of melting as low as AN/GN/NQ or the above mentioned mix which is castable even from a water bath.

And sorry, my munroe-assumption was probably wrong, overlooking the 30mm stand-off. The dent was then likely caused by the plastic eroding the metal. Still, it is very different from a typical jet hole, which is not that rounded but rather looks like drilled, with a clean edge.

Quote:

Originally posted by Marsh . Well gee what do you know, I have a user name there, and have not attempted even 1 post, I get there and am greeted with a message: BANNED. Reason: Wow this is a great forum, you get banned for posting or not posting...does anyone know how that large of an object got up NBK's ass?

Impressive performance, escpecially considering the small diameter of the explosive cylinder! Did you use a booster of some kind, or add few % microballoons to sensitise?

Using a waterbath to meltcast this eutectic is very conveniant, it also means that the melting temperature is less less than 100 deg. C. This makes it ideal for making meltcasts with other explosives like PETN or RDX, analogous to pentolite or cyclotol...

Hoepfully you wouldn't mind sharing some more information about the exact composition of this mixture?

[Edited on 16-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

I too am very impressed by that photo. Cleanly punched right through.

It would be highly desired to have an AP melt, but as said, it melts at temps a bit too high to be workable.

On a second note, a PBX explosive using AP should result in good performance as well, any thoughts on possible mixes?

I was thinking AP/Al/PETN, or AP/PETN.

My pent arrived yesterday.

Edit: I tried detonating 42g AP/Al/SP 60:20:20 mixed with acetone and pressed into a film cannister today with a 2g TCAP det. I did not get any bit of detonation.

I know I know, I need a better det design, but this shows this mix is not easily initiated.

[Edited on 16-8-2006 by Marsh]

I was able to test the AP/TCAP/MEKP in another shaped charge today, 85:7:8 ratio.

What may be useful here is to note the munroe forces demonstrated from this mixture.

The cylindrical lined charges previously tested by Axt (in the Unconventional shaped charge thread) had me interested. It appeared to me by the photos in that thread that the exits were roughly the result of a combination of transferred munroe force/minimal (or very low mass) jet formation.

It just really didn't look like an efficient jet was formed by the cylindrical-lined charges. This was also mentioned, stating it may have been a hole-punch effect.

My experiment compared to the previous one by Axt in the respect that I used 16mm diameter copper liner tubing (vs aluminum), and that my liner tube length was just slightly shorter; 57mm vs 65mm. The base of the charge was 60mm diameter, tapering back from over 70mm.

I felt that the minimal tube length I gave up (8mm compared to Axt's) was acceptable as it helped achieve more head-height above the tube for a flatter shock wave in my charge, and my cup container was less than optimal for mass conservation.


I felt that the L/D ratio of the tube should have still permitted a decent jet to form (if one was going to do so), so I too used zero-standoff. I also did this to give an idea of close munroe forces generated from the AP/TCAP/MEKP mixture.

Like always, I used a plastic drink cup you see at the grocery store in bulk packs. The copper tube was glued to the base, and the cup was packed 3/4 of the way.

This time around, I really wanted decent head height above the liner, and a whole 465g total was used to fill the cup mostly to allow this. I could have used much less had I used PVC pipe as the container. This is a large amount of explosive, but of coarse the amount which contributed to the jet should have roughly been in the 270-300g range. It was again initiated by one of my weak TCAP dets.

The charge was detonated and the results achieved were not particulary impressive of the design to me, although it did confirm my assumption that cylindrical-lined charges are not effective at sufficient penetration through thick targets.

Munroe forces bent the total 2.25" of steel all the way through, but unfortunately cylindrical liners do appear to give limited jet formation, and allowed a maximum of about 17mm jet penetration.

However by munroe force comparison, it is seemingly apparent that the mixture rivals ANNMSA.

On the back of the first plate, I could actually see a pinpoint (actually about 2mm) of copper which penetrated completely, only to be stopped by the second plate. Thus it is shown jet formation was minimal and/or low-mass.

I have pictured todays crater viewable against the other crater made by using a plastic cone. What I see is interesting, the jet formation (or cavity shape) seems to play a big role in penetrated material displaced, almost of equal value to that of the liner material chosen (but then again this may seem like a given). The plastic cone charge actually removed almost the same mass of steel it would appear, but with not as deep a penetration.

I have no doubt that if only one plate was used, damage would have occured duplicating the 1" plate test with 16mm tube which Axt performed using the ANNMSA.

I will place this info here, and place more of the same pertinent info in the unconventional shaped charge thread, since it seems the info covering both topics should be in both threads.

Here are the photos:

16mm Cylindrical charge vs. Plastic cone charge crater


2.25" Bent steel


Penetration w/ carrot


Back of first 3/4" plate


[Edited on 22-8-2006 by Marsh]

Nice one Marsh...

The cylindrical charge in particular, it looks like the first centimeter there was mainly the hole punching effect from the colliding shockwaves (munroe forces), but you are the first that also had clear evidence of at least some jet formation!
Although I suspect that this might be due to the fact that your composition may fire at lower VoD's than you think, using this setup and detonator. Chris did the same setup with methyl nitrate (8000 m/s), and got no penetration at all. It is discussed on the bottom of page 16 of the "shaped charge thread" IIRC...

[Edited on 24-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

Quote:

Originally posted by nitro-genes Nice one Marsh... The cylindrical charge in particular, it looks like the first centimeter there was mainly the hole punching effect from the colliding shockwaves (munroe forces), but you are the first that also had clear evidence of at least some jet formation! Although I suspect that this might be due to the fact that your composition may fire at lower VoD's than you think, using this setup and detonator. Chris did the same setup with methyl nitrate (8000 m/s), and got no penetration at all. It is discussed on the bottom of page 16 of the "shaped charge thread" IIRC... [Edited on 24-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

Yes, I was puzzled by this too at first. After some reading it appeared to be completely normal though. (Experiment first, read later ) Like you said, small abberarions in the explosives density, the allignement and symmetry of the liner, and even internal stresses in the metal of the liner.

Hehe, I hope you're an expert in anger management! I cursed quite some times myself when I tried to make perfect cones out of those lightbulbs. In the end I gave up, and decided to simply glue the lightbulb to PVC tubing (explosive container), leaving all the imperfections just to stick out a little into the standoff tubing. Not that they matter in the first place. Glass glues reasonably well to PVC with PVC adhesive...

But, I only used the lightbulbs because I wanted the liner to be smaller than the 5 cm glass funnel Axt used. Since you use diameters in excess of 5 cm already, these funnels would be a much better choice I think...

Quote:

Originally posted by nitro-genes Hehe, I hope you're an expert in anger management! I cursed quite some times myself when I tried to make perfect cones out of those lightbulbs. In the end I gave up, and decided to simply glue the lightbulb to PVC tubing (explosive container), leaving all the imperfections just to stick out a little into the standoff tubing. Not that they matter in the first place. Glass glues reasonably well to PVC with PVC adhesive... But, I only used the lightbulbs because I wanted the liner to be smaller than the 5 cm glass funnel Axt used. Since you use diameters in excess of 5 cm already, these funnels would be a much better choice I think...

I know, the second lightbulb I did had me cursing in my backyard, since the first one turned out OK and then it was hell from there.

Gee, this is starting to turn into the shaped charge thread... Seems to have drifted this way though so it's alright I guess, since I am really observing just what this perchlorate mixture is capable of as parallel discussion. But if you guys think I should continue the practical aspect of this to the USC thread, then so be it.

By the way, I'm ordering those glass funnels in a minute here too (but still envy Nitro for his perfect copper cones ).

I didn't really explain my epoxy idea too great...what I meant was to have the base of my charge be a layer of epoxy that the base of the bulb lies in and cures. I feel I need the extra charge diameter there (instead of a pipe which fits the exact bulb diameter) to use just a bit more of the lightbulb for the jet formation, since my charges are usually quite moderate in size.

So yesterday I'm outside talking to the neighbor when he takes some copper pipe out to his garage where he collects it from construction work. I didn't want to ask for free copper, but then on the top of the pile I see one which looks very interesting to me, and was forced to ask for it...

Any ideas what outcome may result from this? (It is 16mm diameter spun-formed to a closed tip):

That is really a brilliant idea! This would make the spinning even more easy and with standoff included. I estimate the thickness of the pipe about 1 mm, so using a copper pipe with a diameter of about 30 mm would give the optimal liner diameter/thickness ratio...

PS: Your spinnings do need some more practice by the looks of it! (Just kidding )

The quest is the glory...

[Edited on 26-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

Having read your post, I was so excited that I decided to try and determine if these meltcast compositions are sensitive to detonation without the addition of a dispersed crystaline HE. Having no NaN available at the moment, I decided to go with the 40% AN and 60% of UN/HDN composition that you mentioned...

To make things even more easy, I added urea and hexamin to the AN straight from the package, assuming UN and HDN would be formed during the meltcast operation anyway. Melting was done in a small teflon coated pan (great for pouring!) on a electric heater. The mixture started to melt around 110 deg. C, and was kept at a slightly higher temperature until no more evolution of ammonia was noticed. No smell of formaldehyde was noticed, which I have smelled occasionally when melting HDN. Upon cooling the mixture remained slighly waxy, probably due to the water present from the reaction...

I filled two 50 ml, 1 inch wide, plastic culture tubes with 35 ml of the meltcast. One tube was filled with the meltcast alone, the other with a few % microballoons added to the meltcast to give a reduced density of about 1,4 g/cc. The remaining 15 ml was filled with 20 grams of semtex as a booster. Both tubes were detonated against a 0.5 cm thick steel plate. No damage was visible to the steel plates, although the bang was harder than was to be expected from 20 grams of semtex alone, probaly due to some partial detonation...

Adding 5-10% of aluminium (carefull with this at these temperatures!) could boost sensitivity somewhat and the presence of the water may have reduced the sensitivity, but it is doubtfull you can achieve the full potential of these meltcasts at max density easily...

Their use as a 20-30% castable binder for PETN/RDX is very interesting though, and is put to the test very soon! Firing one of my standard shaped charges with this composition can give an indication of the C-J pressure produced and is on top of my list. One of the things that I noticed is that there is no"cracking" of these meltcasts during cooling which is perfect...

[Edited on 30-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

Sorry about the double post, these eutectic mixtures are just very interesting.

Just finished reading the los alamos tech report about AN eutectics, and found some information...

Fisrt of all, it seems that directly adding the amine bases to the AN instead of dry fusing all the nitrates together influences the sensitivity and performance considerably. Plate dent tests reduced almost 50% for some of the compositions mentioned! Probably, like mentioned before, because of the reaction water which is difficult to eliminate from the meltcast. Unfortunately, the part about the direct or dry fusing process in the report is not scanned very well...

They also mention some compositions containing potassium nitrate. One of the things that strikes me is that even weight percentages of only 7% KN mean a 20% reduction of the VoD, probably due to the inert K+ ion.

You were thinking about replacing the NaN by some organic nitrate, have you thought about using methylamine nitrate? This would be one possible, completely OTC option left to try, although for oxygen balance the ratio's should be changed somewhat...

The critical diameter for the AN/EDDN eutectic is extremely high, more than 7 cm is mentioned. For the AN/ADNT eutectics this is 7 fold lower. This probably is why the charges made in the above post failed to detonate completely. Since it is very probable that most of these meltcasts have critical diameters in excess of 5 cm, adding a crystalline explosive having a much smaller critical diameter, like RDX or PETN is propably the only way of getting the critical diameter down to more reasonable figures. The report mentions these combined meltcasts with RDX to be completely stable though...

AN/ADNT has a VoD of 7800 m/s and performs equally to composition B in the plate dent test. AN/EDDN has a VoD of 6600 m/s and performance should be comparable with TNT. A meltcast composition using comparable organic nitrates , like UN, HDN, MAN, GN, without any inorganic nitrate should be no exception and would offer an extremely easy meltcast composition, comparable to TNT based meltcasts without painfull nitration reactions or the hazards involved with ETN meltcasts for example...

Corrosion of metal containers/liners and hygroscopicity are one of the few drawbacks though...

[Edited on 30-8-2006 by nitro-genes]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Tried the first composition yesterday, this time with freshly prepared and completely dry crystals of UN and HDN. I was surprised it did not form a clear melt at 100 deg C., while as the direct fushion of urea and hexamin with AN did form a clear melt at this temperature. Water from the reaction is just another compound entering the eutectic probably, lowering the melting temperature even further...

The dry fushion of AN/HDN/UN/NaN yielded a very strong and amorphous, plastic like material, that could be bend only minimally at room temperature before breaking. No ammonia or formaldehyde smell or whatsoever.
Though I still doubt the storage ability somewhat. HDN is just such a bitch. drying or casting temperature a little too high, or small excess of NA in it's synthesis and soon you will be welcomed with the unpleasant smell of formaldehyde and the formation of methylamine, guanidine, ammonia, formic acid and god knows what more...

Is there no dissolution of RDX at all? Anyway, I'm glad to hear the critical diameter with only 10% of RDX is down to less than 2 cm. Do you still have that VoD measuring device btw? That would be pretty conclusive concerning it's potential, though not as much fun as a shaped charge of course!

Some ethylenediamine is on it's way, so EDDN is another possible nitrate that I will give a try...

Oh btw Boomer, if you are looking for a safe, cheap and powerfull rocketpropellant you should really read US patent 6055910.. According to the patent, the mixture is powerfull enough to make it into space!

[Edited on 15-9-2006 by nitro-genes]

Yeah, you must be a real loon to apply for such a patent, not to mention these patents aren't exactly cheap...

CHLORATOTRIMERCURIACETALDEHYDE ?
A chlorate acetaldehyde
Has any heard of this being used commercially? There is some material from the USBoM and some material from the FTP.
Mercuric Nitrate / Sodium Chlorate solution (etoh) has acetylene passsed through it yielding a micro crystaline solid of high friction-impact sensitivity. Is reputed to initiate PETN. Appears to be simple and cheap. Must be either too sensitive or have no real shelf life....(?)

(Also posted on APC, but as some here seemed interested in these mixes...)

Tried a 28mm SC with a cast mix of AN/HDN/UN/NaN/KN/GN/NQ (all the leftovers I had) plus just 10% RDX. Casing was 2.5mm wall steel pipe, 42 degree copper 0.8mm liner, standoff 1.5 CD. Using 100g explosve (plus 20g RDX-plastique booster), it went through approx. 50mm of steel.

The pic shows the first two plates (20+25mm). To the right is the entrance hole of the top plate, to the left the exit hole of the second plate. I did not bother to carry the last plate where it got stuck to work:

Nice pics, interesting mix too! No reason for a wild "left over" mix like that to not proform well. What -were- those plates? They look lke old USGS markers or old weight plates from a gym
I know this is OT but with the Holidays around the corner, I had once found that old X-Mas decorations can make workable SC liners; as some of the ornaments for x-mas trees are glass, Al, etc. Sawed in half, they form workable SC shapes.

Weight plates from the gym? No those holes were *not* there before!

BTW I can go look up the mix, even though it was leftover stuff, all components were weighed. Oh and the liner was hand-rolled around a metal cone, using four layers of 0.2mm copper sheet and super glue.

Hehe, that's funny....I have got exactly the same steel plates. There was a whole pile of these in all kinds of sizes at some scrapjard where we bought them. I think the holes in the sides are made to make sure they can't be used again...(for whatever purpose that me be)

If your charge was 28 mm in diameter, I assume you had quite a bit of subcalibration included for 100 grams of explosive? Or did you use a large head height? Too bad you didn't make a photo of the charge itself...

How did you fill the charge? Pourloading or pressing? Nevertheless, the potential of these eutectics is clearly quite high, especially at larger diameters...

Thanks for explaining that, it makes sense indeed: They were from the scrap pile of a place specialised in cutting steel to shape. Unfortunatly they are down now. No more plates buhuuuu.

No subcalibration was used, and approx. 1.5 CD head height above the cone. Density was 1.5 so do the math yourself. It was melted in a hot (~80C) water bath, then spooned in and tamped down while cooling.

Oh and the comp was 93g of 40/15/15/10/5/5/10 AN/UN/HDN/NaN/KN/MAN/RDX (formula 50 from above) plus 5g GN + 2g NQ. The latter were added to see if the m.p. would drop further. In fact it could be hand moulded comfortably, and barely set hard at RT.

@nitrogenes & others fluent in German as my German is
*very* marginal and minimal ( as if that isn't obvious )

Please look at the reference for eutectics mentioned in that German patent posted above , which relates to E. Janecke , Zeitschrift fur Elektrochemie 1943 , Bd. 48 , S. 453 .

Is the context for that reference more general as to describe
a charting of many more eutectics than the one mentioned 51 Mg(NO3)2 / 49 NaNO3 ?

If it is a general charting of other nitrate mixture eutectics ,
I am thinking that we should get that chart for any further reference value it may have .

It seems likely that a bit of urea or glycine and perhaps some other things could be added to further reduce the mp.
of that nitrates mixture described in the German patent .
Perhaps with some added components a very good oxidizing
salts mixture for a melt in fuel type emulsion could evolve from this .

I am also very interested in these mixed nitrate systems
for their possible usefulness in nitrations , and also perhaps
usefulness for improved distillations of HNO3 .....even those
where sulfuric acid is also used . These mixed nitrates may
provide a way to add some finesse to already known reactions ....improving the yields while decreasing the
rigorous and sometimes even extreme conditions which
are otherwise required .

[Edited on 19-1-2007 by Rosco Bodine]

This thread seems to be the proper place to continue to post any eutectics or other interesting mixtures of nitrates which are found reported in the literature .....
( even though the thread title is
*perchlorate compositions* )
it probably is a good sneaky way to shield the thread from
all the predictable and superfluous AN + fuel composition discussion which would miss the point concerning the unusual fusible and or reactive mixtures whose discussion has found a sanctuary here .

Anyway , here's another eutectic from Urbanski .

66.5 NH4NO3 / 21 NaNO3 / 12.5 KNO3 fp. 118.5C

And I found an old patent regarding the use of a carbonate
of an alkaline earth metal in reaction with a low water melt
of NH4NO3 , which concurrently produces the nitrate of the
alkaline earth by double decomposition , with the expulsion
of water lost to the evolution of byproduct ammonia and
CO2 at the heat of the reaction .....so that a crumbling product more easily broken up on stirring while cooling
is the result . This patent relates purely to the Calcium
salt .....but it may possibly also apply to the Magnesium
salt or a mixed dolomitic system as well .

[Edited on 20-1-2007 by Rosco Bodine]

Attachment: GB383663 Carbonate of Alkaline earth reacted with AN to form granular product.pdf (168kB)
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Zinc can form a diammine zinc nitrate from similar reaction if the temperature is limited , but at a bit higher temperature
the diammine zinc will lose its ammonia and the anhydrous nitrate will remain

This is of interest by itself ...but also in relation to Magnesium nitrate which is most difficult to be gotten in a low hydration condition ......since there is a combination
of Zinc and Magneium nitrates which forms a eutectic
that is more easily dehydrated .

The inference is that some concurrent and/or sequential reaction of the carbonates , basic carbonates and/or oxides
of both Zinc and Magnesium with a low water or anhydrous
eutectic melt which is largely NH4NO3 ....may result in a
nearly anhydrous mixture of the Zinc and Magnesium nitrates
which has the crumbly physical nature as would make it useful for being able to be added and dispersed as a
dehydrant in a nitration mixture . A minor percentage
of Calcium might be useful also in such a mixture , as could
some basic nitrates , which may not as tenaciously hold onto
any water in the mixture where they are formed , but would
be converted to the normal nitrate in a nitration mixture whereupon their dehydrating value would manifest .

Attachment: US5071630 Zinc diammine Nitrate.pdf (485kB)
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The eutectics mentioned above, using only AN plus an (earth)alkali metal nitrate, all have melting points around 115-120C. To make it pourable without having it solidify instantly when it touches the container wall, you have to go approx. 20C above the mp, which gives 135-140C as the working temp.

Apart from having to use a stinky/messy oil bath instead of a water bath, these temps are too high for my taste to add any RDX, let alone a nitrate ester.

Using an emulsifier or flux as a fuel is something I did not think of before. Instead, I tried to get zero OB with nitrates only, namely organic nitrates which all have negative OB. In fact, all mixes I tried have slightly negative OB, between -2% and -15% mostly. This was partly caused by the use of HDN with its bad OB compared to e.g. UN. Since I want to get rid of it anyway, what more stable nitrates would you people think best, GN, EDDN... (I am not gonna use ALL together again, no way - it was just a test, plus a disposal of leftovers)?

BTW I tried AP, but it did not seem to work well. At least I had the impression it did not dissolve well below 110C, no surprise being a picrate, not a nitrate. Plus, it is incredibly messy, staining everything including the chemist yellow

Most inportantly, the compatibility with metals goes from bad (corrosion with very slow decomposition) to worse (possible generation of primary explosives in situ)!

[Edited on 20-1-2007 by Boomer]