Information on R-salt

[tvs17]

I am looking for more info on the R-Salt. What is the structure? Synthesis? If anyone has any information on this one please let me know. Also references to articles or books are very appreciated!

[tvs17]

I remember vaguely that it was the nitroso form of RDX? Cyclomethylenetrinitrosamine or something?

[BrAiNFeVeR]

I've never heard of the R-Salt thingy your talking about, but then again, I'm not here for such a long time yet ...
Undoubtly, some of the more experienced members of this forum will be able to help you !

PS: that is not a fair way of collecting posts tvs17 !!!!!!!



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"Mess with me, and you'll end up with a .44 under your chin and your brains on the ceiling"

[Mr Cool]

R-salt is RDX, but with N-NO instead of N-NO2, so it is cyclotrimethylene trinitrosamine, the nitrosamine equivalent of RDX.
I am also very interested in this explosive, it is powerful and easy to make. Lead block expansion is 370cm3, VoD is 7300 m/s at 1.5 g/cm3. At 1.57 g/cm3, VoD is around 7800 m/s. When at a density of 0.85 g/cm3, it is sensitve to 0.3g of Hg(ONC)2, but at 1.57 it needs 2.5 grams of Hg(ONC)2.
At 20*C, it has a solubility of 0.2% in water, at 60*C in acetone it has a solubility of 255% (255g of R-salt in 100g of acetone).
It can be oxidised to RDX using a mixture of H2SO4 (98%) and HNO3 (99%), H2SO4 (98%) and a metal nitrate, or hydrogen peroxide (30%) and HNO3 (99%). Yield of this reaction is said to be 74%.

It can be made as follows (translated roughly from Swedish by me, the original Swedish method is below):

1) Dissolve 7g of hexamine in 50mL of water. Add 26mL of concentrated HCl (36%?).

2) Dissolve 10.4g of NaNO2 in 50mL of water, add it to the hexamine/HCl solution and cool it to 0*C for 1 hour.

3) Filter out the crystals, wash them with water, dissolve them in warm acetone and dump the solution into 100mL of 5% NaHCO3 solution to precipitate the crystals. Filter them and dry at room temperature. Yield is 3.6 grams (that's a c. 30% yield based on the amount of hexamine, which is why this explosive isn't used).

Here's the original:


1. Lös upp 7 g HMTA i 50 ml vatten. I denna lösning hälls 26 ml konc. saltsyra.
Blanda detta med 400 g is i en bägare.

2. Lös upp 10.4 g natriumnitrit (NaNO2) i 50 ml vatten och häll detta i en
portion ned i isbadet. Låt lösningen stå i en timme vid 0 °C.

3. Filtrera ut de bildade kristallerna och tvätta dem med vatten. Lös upp dem i
varm aceton och häll ut det i 100 ml 5% natriumbikarbonatlösning. Filtrera
igen och torka i rumstemperatur. Produkten bör väga cirka 3.6 g.

I tried this yesterday, but it failed. My NaNO2 was home-made, and I think it still contained too much NaNO3.

[Mr Cool]

Or, if you use 13mL of HCl and 20.8 grams of NaNO2 and do it at room temperature, you get DNTP. I don't have much info on this one... I don't even know what DNTP stands for, but I'm guessing that in English it's Cyclopentamethylenetetraminodinitrosamine (that's one big fucking word!). It's structure is a ring of four methylene groups and four nitrogens. Between two nitrogens, across the middle of the ring, is another methylene group, and the other two nitrogens have the NO's attached to them.

[Kekule]

As you cen see at the homepage of Dr. Rainer Haas (http://haas.purespace.de/v11.html)
R-salt is a synonyme for Cyclotrimethylen-
trinitrosamine, which is also know as TMTN.
It could be synthesized by reacting Hexamine
with Sodiumnitite or Potassiumnitrite at pH
of 1. On the webpage http://www.flashback.se/arkiv/98/2/PYROKEM.TXT a reactionprocess is described. But i think that in spite of its high detonation rate( 7000 m/s with a density of 1.57g /cm^3) and its easy creation it would
be a a poore choice of explosive because it
is able to detonate in contact with concentrated sulfuric acid. As said above the reaction takes place in a acidic milleu
which would increase the risc of an accidential explosion or might only lead to a decomposition of the explosive.

[madog]

Is this stuff tough to detonate? Are all the properties the same as rdx? And it works with kno3? this sounds very good.

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"True freedom is not without anarchy"

[This message has been edited by madog (edited August 31, 2001).]

[Mr Cool]

No, R-Salt CAN NOT be formed with HCl and KNO3!! That's why mine didn't work well - I still had NaNO3 present and not enough NaNO2!
And I posted some sensitivity data above... 0.3g of Hg(ONC)2 at 0.85 g/cm3, 2.5g of Hg(ONC)2 at 1.57 g/cm3 caused detonation.
Obviously all characteristics are not the same as RDX, because it is not RDX...

[Berserker]

You must remember that most nitrosoamines are -extremely- carcinogenic! This is why they have strict regulations on using potassium nitrate in food, because when in your stomach it will break down into nitrite, then with the HCl in the stomach acids, it will create dreaded nitrosoamines. They are also major cancer causing agents in cigarettes, even though they are in such a low amount in these, they tend to be cumulative and can do a lot of damage, think about the few ng of this in an average ciggie, then about the multigram amounts you'll be playing with.
Sorry to be all alarmist about this, but I just thought you should know...

[Mr Cool]

I know they're nasty, but thanks anyway for the warning!
I treat everything as if it's carcinogenic, corrosive, explosive etc., so I should be OK.

[CodeMason]

How did you prepare your NaNO₂? I assume by simply heating NaNO₃ to cause thermal decomposition, but could you give specifics?

[tvs17]

I usually make KNO2 by heating KNO3 with lead. KNO3 + Pb --> KNO2 + PbO. I can post some more detailed instructions when I have more time.

[CodeMason]

That's the standard method yes... I was looking for something more novel I guess.

[CodeMason]

Hrmm, I always thought saltsyra was Swedish for H₂SO₄...

[Then again.. since 'salt' is NaCl and syra means acid, it would mean acid of salt, thereform HCl.]

[This message has been edited by CodeMason (edited September 07, 2001).]

[tvs17]

I do have another method of making KNO2/NaNO2 somewhere(have to search for that), but compared to the method with lead, it is fat more complicated.

The method with lead, you know that probably already, is easy and quick and doesn't requires special equipment...

BTW, I am going to make CTMTNA and I will also try to make some derivatives. Results are posted when ready.