Optimizing APAN

[rjche]

This work is aimed at a maximum brisance APAN mixture.

The discussion first goes through AP production using optimum amounts.

Then it calculates the proper amount of AN to add to AP to furnish enough O to fully burn all components. The results show that 12% AP in AN (by wt) results in a fully oxygen balanced composite, that should yield peak explosive force as well as speed, because none of the evolved heat is wasted heating material that cannot be burned.

The calculation for AP is made using typical temp and concentrations which are reported to give good yields of trimer with little dimer inclusion.

Notice all calculations are using molar quantities to avoid (as much as possible) numerical errors in conversions, which might go unnoticed in a complex calculation.

You do not have to make such large quantities, and it would be prudent not to do so, unless you were making a large amount of APAN, for some legitimate blasting operation.

Notice that homemade explosives are illegal in some jurisdictions, but legal in others. Read the actual statutes, do not depend on advice. In some USA states the explosives licensing statutes specifically say they do not apply to any farming use of explosives. Check that out. Other jurisdictions may exempt mining uses. The exemptions are still there although the enforcers have tried to unlawfully expand their jurisdiction into the forbidden areas. thus in some states if one uses commercially prepared explosives in farming that is exempt, but mixing your own (they claim) to be within their regulatory jurisdiction and require a license. Thats warm steaming BS of course, but be aware of it and avoid a confrontation. IF nailed it would go a long way to read the statute to the first appearance before magistrate and get the case thrown out for lack of jurisdition.

To make good AP with small crystal structure:

React in quart fruit jar sitting in bucket of water at about 36F and
filled up to the same level as the reacting liquids inside the jar will be. The higher density of the reactants will keep the jar from trying to float in the cooling water.

Pour into a quart canning jar 10.5 oz 33% H2O2 at 36F. (Had to pick a % and that one is in the middle of the good range)

Pour into that H2O2 7.5 oz acetone at 36F.
It will warm up somewhat. (if 36F to begin with only slightly warm to hand touch)

Let it cool back below about 40F, in water bath at 36 F (let sit about an hour)
.
Pour into the mixture 1 oz 30% hcl at about 36F.
Stir a minute or two.

Almost immediate clouding of the solution will form.
Let sit in same air temp of mid 30's F.

4 hours later the jar will be almost filled with white precipitate slightly above original liquid line. Some will be floating (about i.5 inches thick layer. About a 1.5 inch layer will be sunk in the liquid, with about half inch clear liquid between those layers.

Jiggle bottle to cause floating AP to sink.

Result will then be the original liquid level now filled with dense white slush almost gelled.

Let sit in same temp for 24 hours, and the jar will then be an almost non pourable slush of snow white fine material.

Put a coffee filter over the top of the jar mouth, rubber band it on, and drain the liquid into another jar overnight. Then, almost fill the AP jar with water, slosh it around or stir, then refilter it.
This will carry out almost all the acid and unreacted components.

Then do that again. This will get almost all the rest of the unreacted components sticking to the sides of the crystals, and in between them.

Then to a pint of water add a couple tabelspoons sodium bicarbonate. When all is dissolved pour it into the jar of AP. Stir till all fizzing quits. Then filter it again.

Then make a solution of about a teaspoon of light corn syrup in a pint of water, and wash the AP again with that. This will leave a surface coat of sticky syrup on the dried AP to cushion its crystals from mechanical events.

That is not enough syrup on the surface to affect reaction rates. It will improve the handling of AP and reduce its mechanical sensitivity some. A similar thing is done to lead azide in the final wash using dextrose, to calm its mechanical sensitivity.

For the above the AP components were derived as:
Acetone mw=58 + H peroxide mw=34 = AP mw=222 + water mw=18
3(C3 H6 O) + 3(H2 O2) = 1(C9 H18 O6) + 3(H2 O)


elemental Reactants Balance
9 C = 9 C
18 H 6 H = 18 H + 6 H
3 O 6 O = 6 O + 3 O

Weights balance
3X58GMS HP =174GMS 3X34GMS A =102 = 222GMS AP + 54GMS Water

All things balance, The one oz HCL 30% does not react but remains in
the finished solution and on the AP. It is washed out with the first and second washes, and traces neutralized to salt with the soda rinse. The salt residue is removed with the syrup rinse.

To avoid any fumes inject the HCL below the liquid of the mixture.
The HCL makes white fumes if allowed to contact air.
It does not make any fumes after its diluted into the reactants.

Done right there are NO fumes at any point in the procedure.

The % H peroxide was determined by weighing a 20 cc hypo syringe to get its MT weight and then filling it with 20cc HP, and weighing again. The final wt - the MT wt, was the weight of 20cc HP. Dividing that weight by 20 gave the weight of 1 cc, which is also its sp gr.

Consulting the sp gr table posted in the chemicals forum will give the % strength. Use proportion to scale to different HP concentrations. It is recommended that greater % be watered down to be in the 30's range.

More of weaker can be used. For example 5 times the volume of 6% would be about right. Any unreacted components wash out with the rinse water. If the acetone is in excess it can dissolve and take with a little of your AP. Make any error so the HP is slightly in excess if possible.

To determine the best % concentration of AP in AN determine how much O is needed to burn all components of AP. That turns out to be 21 moles of O per mole of AP. We have to get those moles of O from AN.

C 9 H 18 O 6 + 21 O= 9 CO2 +9 H20

The H2O will come out as superheated steam which has about a 5000 volume expansion from the liquid water, so the blast effect will be considerable.

one mole AP Needs 21 moles O to yield all the energy it is capable of.

NH4NO3=AN=2N 4H 3O

When it decomposes to its final products this happens:

2N 4H 30 = N2 +2 H20 +1 O = So AN yields one mole O per mole AN (and two more moles water and one mole nitrogen).

Therefore we need 21 MOLES AN TO ONE MOLE AP

MW OF AN =80, 21 MOLES=1680 GMS

1 MOLE AP=222 GMS

So, to 222 gms AP add 1680 gms AN to make 1902 total APAN mixture.

final O balanced mix is 222/1902= 12% AP

Therefore IMO, most brisant mixture would be 12% AP in AN mix.

I would recommend using at least 1 gram of AP as an BC initiator to make sure the ANAP gets off to a good start.

IMO, it would be foolish to scrimp on the initiatior quantity when any extra there will insure full gain from the total.

Considering how much AP has to be made to create APAN to begin with, several grams extra for the initatior would be wise, and little added effort.

Also for maximum brisance the AN would have to be powdered or at least ground fine, and compressed to about sp gr 1. That sp gr is based on Cook's work in the 60's which found AN was most sensitive to initiation when ground fine with 1% fuel, and compressed to density 1. Then it would go from a #6 BC. There is little reason to believe different density would be best for AN loaded with AP as its fuel.

When AN is exploded while in the prill form, it is most sensitive to initation when the surface of the prills are coated with about 1% fuel. It is most powerful when O balanced with about 6% fuel.

In APAN, the above work loads the AN with an O balanced fuel amount, which fuel is also a high energy explosive itself.

Like TNT however AP is very O deficient.

(A side issue is that TNT-AN ought make a powerful meltable and pourable explosive, but would reguire a sassy booster to get it where it belongs, to do its stuff).

To make lab quantities, take the above numbers:
10.5 fl oz HP
7.5 fl oz Acetone
1 fl oz HCL

and convert them to cc, using 10.5 cc 30%HP, 7.5 cc Acetone, and 1CC HCL, following the above method. That will yield a small experimental amount of AP, best for learning and loosing fear of the process.

[andreas]

What are you brabling about if I may ask.

In your first part of your post you state that you give everything in molar amounts. Yet in the ap synthesis you start using OZ's.

Furthermore I think this is more about the OB of apan then the production of ap.
Although it is inportant to know, for ob, that you have got mostly the trimer version of ap. You don't have to point out the production of AP.

If this doesn't maken sence to you don't look at it.
And although it IS usefull to calculate the right amounts for apan, I do not think you have to make such lenghty posts.

[shooter3]

Hey andreas, what the hell are you bitching about. We just got a mountain of useful information from a very knowledgeable guy. Don't piss him off. He may leave.

As for me, I'm a little nervous mixing a primary with AN. The volumes involved preclude a "minor" accident, but in an emergency it may be the only thing you can get.

If we could combine this with the "AP from paste hardener" maybe we have a viable, safe explosive.

[rjche]

Andreas, thank you for your learned comments. While you said nothing of merit, you do sort of know how to type.

As for my long post, sorry it exceeded your attention span. However IMO if you got fatigued reading that rather short dissertation on a process, there is no hope that you will ever become a chemist.

If the post was too long simply ignore it. An idiot wants to know mix a peck of this with a peck of that and success. A student wants to understand why things are done. A good teacher always explains why things were done.

As for the starting to work in moles to keep the math clean, and then shifting to practical units, if you haven't mastered that trick to avoid deadly errors, you must be a serious novice. I shifted to fl. oz because most of the persons playing with APAN or ANAP, appear to be very shy in the theoretical and practical realms.

The last of the work was for ones like you who skip over all the discussion and look for a recipe to go use. With little understanding what they accomplish in the explosives field is early demise.

Why don't you amuse us with your expertise? Pick a subject, any subject and give your best dissertation on it. Show us what a pro can do.

Although we both carry the Nome de plume of amateur, that is related to verbosity, not skill. I don't post many times, but when I do I try to say something useful. Look at my membership number not the amateur thing. I've been around a thousand members before you grew up into the area where you could be interested in explosive chemistry, and joined the forum.

I am curious as to just what it is about the work that angered you.

Do you make it some other way, and feel bad that I posted a different way. Although you are a bit obnoxious I would like to understand all forms of life if practical.

God help you if you ever crack a professional chemistry journal and try to understand something therein.

Anyway I apologize for stirring your whatever it is. Please avoid my posts in the future for they appear to be incompatible with your whatever it is.

[Did this really have to be this long to get your point accross..? ~MrC]

<small>[ February 07, 2003, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: Mr Cool ]</small>

[nbk2000]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">2N 4H 30 = N2 +2 H20 +1 O</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Problem with the above equation is that Oxygen is always O₂. It doesn't occur as a single except under rare conditions.

Unless you meant that 2NH₄NO₃ -&gt; 2N₂ + 4H₂O + O₂?

I'll find some further info on calculating oxygen balance.

<small>[ February 05, 2003, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: nbk2000 ]</small>

[rjche]

Thank you nbk2000 for the discussion that O atoms assemble in the O2 molecular form in nature except under stressed conditions.

I am well aware of that and am also able to calculate using half a mole, or atomic O in checking reaction equations. Gotta keep the mind on what's going on however.

For those who have trouble with that merely double the equations and it will then have two O atoms which can be written an O2 molecule.

Actually in the stressed conditions of a detonation wavefront, there are plenty of single O atoms flying around looking for something to attach to. If they find nothing then they assemble with another O to form the normal gaseous molecular form of O2. If they can't find a partner they just end up as a wild O atom, which is a very aggressive thing indeed. They usually find something to attach to even if they have to rape it.

I do hope that method on my part did not derail forum readers. One above got seriously bent out of shape but apparently that which you pointed went un-noticed by it.

As a moderator do you know if the forum dislikes such length posts as I made? I never bothered to ask because in the profession such are trivially short as things go.

[EP]

Nothing wrong with a long post if it's worth reading, I've read some very long posts from you that were quite good. In this case however, much of your post is about AP synth, which we all know how to do. Nothing too wrong with the rest of it however, although the spaces in the equations make it a bit hard to read. (of course I don't know how to do subscripts here either....) Well, lets try:&lt;sub&gt;test&lt;/sub&gt;

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> You do not have to make such large quantities, and it would be prudent not to do so, unless you were making a large amount of APAN, for some legitimate blasting operation. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">APAN wouldn't be used in "legitimate" blasting, that's what ANFO is for. :p

[0EZ0]

Oxygen Balance plays an important factor in how an explosive performs. Theoretically the closer to 0% the OB is, the more powerful and brisant an explosive is. Now in most cases an explosive is nowhere near the perfect OB. To perfect that, you may mix 2 explosives to create a composite with a near perfect OB. One having an exess of oxygen, and one having a deficiancy of oxygen.

In the case of APAN, one needs to find the appropriate amounts in which the two are to be mixed. Seeing as rjche has not gone into to it all that deeply about calculating OB, I show some calculations below for your amusement.

I've recently been reading up on Oxygen Balance (OB) to further my understanding on Explosives. There are a few formula's that can be used to estimate Decompsition Products, then from there to calculating Oxygen Balance.

One book I have read recently goes into depth about OB and decomposition reactions called 'Chemistry of Explosives'. Just to show everyone. From the information I found in it, I have shown some calculations below.

Balanced reaction formulae for complete combustion:

When detonation takes place, the explosive is oxidised to form gaseous products. Assume that on detonation, the reactants are fully oxidised to carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen etc. Using that information, we can then balance the reaction for Ammonium Nitrate.

NH₄NO₃ =&gt; nH₂O + nN₂ + nO

NH₄NO₃ =&gt; 2H₂O + nN₂ + nO

NH₄NO₃ =&gt; 2H₂O + N₂ + nO

NH₄NO₃ =&gt; 2H₂O + N₂ + 1O

This shows that in the NH₄NO₃ molecule, there is sufficient oxygen to fully oxidise all the detonation products to their most stable states. Not only that but there is one oxygen molecule left over.

Now to calculate the oxygen balance for AN, one must find the percentage in weight of the oxygen left over, or in some cases how much it is lacking.

There are a few formula's to use to calculate the OB of an explosive material. One is shown below using Ammonium Nitrate as the example.

Formula of AN (NH₄NO₃)

Molecular mass of AN:

H = 1.00 x 4
N = 14.00 x 2
O = 15.99 x 3

AN = (1.00*4)+(14.00*2)+(15.99*3)
= 79.97

Total molecular mass of of oxygen(O) atoms in the products:

1 x 15.99 = 15.99

Amount of oxygen liberated or taken in by percentage:

(15.99*100)^79.97
= +19.99499812%

So the Oxygen Balance for Ammonium nitrate is rounded +19.99%

So there you have it, a calculated OB for Ammonium Nitrate.
Now all that is needed is the OB for Acetone Peroxide :D :( .

In the same way AN's OB can be calculated, so can Acetone Peroxide.
Assuming form most people's synth of AP, some dimer is also formed along with the more favoured trimer. For time purposes I only show the calculated OB for the trimer form.

C₉H₁₈O₆ =&gt; nCO₂ + nH₂O + nO

C₉H₁₈O₆ =&gt; 9CO₂ + nH₂O + nO

C₉H₁₈O₆ =&gt; 9CO₂ + 9H₂O + nO

C₉H₁₈O₆ =&gt; 9CO₂ + 9H₂O -21O

Formula of AP (C₉H₁₈O₆)

Molecular Mass of AP:

C = 10.81 x 9
H = 1.00 x 18
O = 15.99 x 6

AP = (10.81*9)+(1.00*18)+(15.99*6)
= 211.23

Total molecular mass of Oxygen(O) atoms in the products:

-21 x 15.99 = -335.79

Amount of Oxygen liberated or taken in:

(-335.79*100)^211.23
= -158.9688965%

So the OB for AP is rounded to -158.96%

Now finally onto the ratios of AP to AN

For every 1 AP mole you need 21 moles of oxygen. Seeing as AN has a spare Oxygen atom, you need 21 moles of AN to every mole of AP.

(1*100)^21
= 4.761904762%

Molecular weight of a mole of AP:
= 211.23

211.23 x 1
= 211.23

Molecular weight of a mole of AN:
= 79.97

79.97 x 21
= 1679.37

Final percentage ratios by weight:

(211.23*100)^1679.37
= 12.57793101%

100 - 12.57793101%
= 87.42206899%

So now we have it!

Ammonium Nitrate = 87.42206899%
Acetone Peroxide (trimer) = 12.57793101%

Well what alot of work that was. The ratios can be changed to include the 'dimer' form of AP into the ratio equations.

So I hope it helps to bring a wider form of understanding for some members regarding OB and calculating ratios.

<small>[ February 06, 2003, 12:32 AM: Message edited by: 0EZ0 ]</small>

[nbk2000]

From <a href="http://131.122.80.20/wse/academic/courses/es300/lessons/lsn22teach.htm" target="_blank">http://131.122.80.20/wse/academic/courses/es300/lessons/lsn22teach.htm</a>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> D. To determine Oxygen Balance of 100 grams of a compound (the convention we use):

<img src="http://131.122.80.20/wse/academic/courses/es300/lessons/lsn22teach_files/image003.gif" alt=" - " />

C = # of carbon atoms
H = # of hydrogen atoms
M = # of metal atoms
O = # of oxygen atoms
MW = molecular weight of explosive

You an mix explosives into compounds (composites) to improve the OB; for example:

OB of TNT = -74%
OB of Ammonium Nitrate = + 20%

But, a mixture of 20% TNT with 80% A.N. (Amatol) gives OB = 1%
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">KaCHING! Score! Look what I found... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

<a href="http://www.sainc.com/onr/detsymp/technicalProgram.htm" target="_blank">http://www.sainc.com/onr/detsymp/technicalProgram.htm</a>

AND

<a href="http://www.sainc.com/onr/detsymp/financcmt.html#techprogram" target="_blank">http://www.sainc.com/onr/detsymp/financcmt.html#techprogram</a> (scroll down)

Found mention of a new explosive called LLM-105, which has 125% of the power of TATB, with 4x the impact resistance of RDX/HMX.

Citation:

P. F. Pagoria, Synthesis and characterization of 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyrozine-1-oxide, Propellents, Explosives and Pyrotechics, submitted for publication.

<small>[ February 06, 2003, 12:25 AM: Message edited by: nbk2000 ]</small>

[Anthony]

rjche, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your posts.

I'd say something to andreas, but you've already debased him nicely :)

Whilst your posts are not exotic or overly involved/complex, they thoroughly cover more practical topics. The length is merely a result of meticulousness. Loaded with common sense, good advice, and often personal and amusing anecdotes. I'm sure the vast majority of members enjoy your posts like I do, and I hope you continue making them for a long time to come :cool:

[Mr Cool]

I'm not convinced that APAN @ OB would be the optimised ratio. AP is significantly more brisant than AN, and therefore the AN will have the effect of diluting AP's power. I suspect that there is a compromise between these two factors, although it might be rather difficult to calculate...
But, APAN is not what people use if they want power, it's what they use if they want something CHEAP. If you want power, go for an ammonia dynamite, ANNM, or a pure nitrate ester. I'd like to believe that everyone here has the ability to make ammonia dynamite, and it's not really that much harder than APAN. It will be a LOT safer, too.
Therefore, I would say that the best APAN ratio is that with the least amount of AP that can still be detonated reliably with, say, 1g of AP, as this will be the most economical, which is APAN's advantage.

[rjche]

I agree with Cool about apan not competing with really high explosives.

The intent of making it at all is that it's fuse detonatable, easy to make, and, as he said, cheap.

The effort was to try to get apan as good as it can be. That does not mean it will be as good as explosives can be. My 180 cc dirt bike is about as good as 180 can be, but it doesn't compete with a 360.

True there was a lot about apan, but without a good start on ap, any work on apan will be problematical. (Is it trimer, dimer, or both, and how much? When both are possible its hard to get just one with being careful.)

As far as apan goes an expl engr in a free country who is familiar with such stuff tried ap, and ground a bb sized lump on an anvil with a 3 lb hammer face sliding around on it, steel to steel, and nothing happened. He bore down and slid it around and still nothing happened.

He dropped the hammer several times at increasing height on up to 3 inches before it went off. He said it compares in sensitivity with match heads, or nitroglycerine wet tissue, or chlorate sulfur. He says he is not impressed with its horror stories.

He tried the 12% apan, and found it was just about as sensitive as the ap alone.

He tried testing brisance by using a 22lr hull full, with a rg58 coax cable pressed into the end compressing the ap till the ap resisted with a couple pounds push, then crimped the cable in the hull. He fired it in a quart of sand, with a HV ignition transformer (stun gun will do also) into the other end of the coax. The end inside the hull against the ap was cut square leaving a gap for the spark to jump. A hundred feet of RG58 coax costs less than blasting fuse nowdays, and its reuseable like forever.

Pure ap caused several small pieces of brass found after sifting the sand through fly screen. The end of the hull was whole, but bulged out, and had sand indentations making it quite pock marked.

He did the same with apan, and found it only split the case on one side, leaving one piece, and no dents in the head, and AN was left in the hull.

His comment was that the stuff probably had a minimum mass that would hold the AN inside the pressure ball long enough for the an to go also.

That was my suspicion also, that's why I recommended a good booster for the apan rather than fuseing it off. Fusing would work though if there was much of it and some confinement.

As for the post on oxygen balance, there is a much shorter way than weighing stuff if all you want is the formula. Its called OB but ALL things must balance.

The way I did it counts symbols. All symbols on each side of the equation must end up the same amount. Each symbol represents a mole of that material, the numbers tell how many. Same if you are balancing the heats of formation to see how much energy the explosive is going to liberate. That equal sign means the same number of everything must be present on each side of it.

O2 for example is mw 32. O is mw 16. Wait till you got the formula all OK then shift to grams, or any other form you want, to get to actual mixing amounts.

Mixing liquids requires fl oz/ or cc, and taking into consideration sp gravity.

BTW, in my top post, the ounce amounts are fluid oz since all things are liquids. The quantities account for specific gravity of the various liquids, so they have different ratios than the formula ratios, (formula ratios assume 100% purity by weight, and don't have anything at all to do with volume).

Also as to the apan not being used in any legitimate blasting there are legitimate uses. In some places it is legal to blast, but no explosives can be bought because the dealers don't want the liability of dealing with non licensed persons.

There if you want to plant an apple tree or three, you NEED to blast the ground 5 ft below it with half stick of 50% dynamite (recommended in most ag sources) to shatter hard ground so the roots can expand to their full limit. Makes a lot of difference in yield from the tree. You do that again about every 5 to 10 years to keep up yield.

However you will play hell getting any explosives. You will have to hire a licensed blaster who will want a hundred bucks just to come see, and then add his costs and it will end up cheaper to buy apples at a quarter each. You will have to improvise.

Anfo is useless without the high explosives to get it going. If you're gonna make em, you can, but then why not save effort and use the apan, since it will do that job. Also a good method would be to put all your ap in a bundle and then use anfo. Both will do the job, and it may be 6 of one half dozen of the other.

Apan also might blast rock, It could blast a pond in a wet spot quite easily.

As crooked governments get more afraid of the citizens they are screwing over, they are clamping down on all things, and soon it will be excessive use of toilet paper, and TP licenses etc.

I am glad to hear my posts help. When I started chemistry I could find out almost nothing, and got my share of dents in the armor from speculations of "hell that looks safe enough".

YES I did hit a damn BC on an anvil with a hammer before I knew what they were. 6 of us found some, didn't know what they were and filled them with fffg powder and lit the open end with a match, to see them fly off like little skyrockets. The made a bang at the end which confused us. Others we made out of tubing didn't do that bang at the end. We figured there was something in them.

We poked in them and there was some waxy stuff in there. Next bright idea was, well hell, just put it on the anvil and squash it and see what's there.

I was elected since my head was most pointy. Being the typical kid, no thoughts of unintended consequences ever stood between me and instant activity. Nothing in heaven nor earth is more formidable than ignorance in action. (anon)

I laid it up there and hit it with a 1 pound ball peen hammer... a right smart thud, and nothing happened.

It merely bulged to about double diameter.

Shit,... whang, double hard, again nothing.

It was now about flat as a half dollar is thick. One kid said shit they ain't nothin in it is they?

While that was being said, I flailed it with a truly wild smack, and a roar deafened us, and I remember saying dang, and then I saw a strange look on the faces of kids looking at me and they were saying holy shit and such stuff.

In seconds blood dripped down onto the anvil, and I cracked mach getting into the house to see a mirror. Not good.

Shapnel (thin copper like a 22 hull stuff, Had cut the upper lip, eyebrow, nose, and right cheek. How the hell that stuff got out from under that hammer to get up at my head I never figured out. I was bending down but don't remembermy face being in line with the anvil top.

Maw saw me bleeding in many places and had a conniption fit. She did remain lucid enough however to sew loose meat together with her sewing needle while it was still numb, and put a bandaid over it.

That was depression years, no doctors were used for less than life threatening things, or broke ones, because they wanted money for their work.

She bitched a concerto in fortisimo, and 16 time, to dad, when he came home from work, about leaving his dang powder and stuff where we kids got in it.

He applied a size 12 remedial boost to my ass a few times and put a lock on his gun cabinet. For about 4 weeks I was out of the chemistry business.

I point that out (again), to impress everyone, that kids under about 21 age may have high IQ, but wisdom has not yet come to them. You gotta watch out for them. They WILL light a match in a gunpowder factory, and even worse. They are capable of scaring hell out of a sane man.

They do that because no adult ever took the time to explain to them about such hazards. Parents are often less informed than the kids on exotic stuff. They also don't watch enough of what kids do. Some Spec Forces types used to let kids go do dangerous stuff for them because a kid can walk through a police station and no one will notice it. They are like stray dogs, nobody seems to notice them.

Some kids, with bad luck, don't make it.

I mentioned before, my stupid trick of riding a bike in the woods without eye protection and helmet. Cost me a bad eye when a briar raked it. To see what that's like tape one eye shut for a day, and then extrapolate that inconvenience into 50 years duration.

Go ahead do it. LEARN what the downside risk is.

Also tape three fingers of your BEST hand together so they are stiff and useless for a day and see what those kind of consequences amount to. Try wiping your ass. Learn things.

Luckily I didn't have that one so it's just advice.

Doing that will create wisdom in your head better than a thousand posts. It will teach your subconcious (which actually runs your body and you only ask it to do what you think you are doing directly). It will then refuse to do some things which it forsees would damage IT.

It can do that kind of analysis in milliseconds, (It works in machine language like binary in computers and is dammn fast compared to YOU who thinks in higher language which must be interpeted to the machine before it can proceed.

So if you train your subconcious, it can keep you alive. IF you don't train it then it may shut you down when you really don't want that to happen. It's called freezing up. Happens sometimes to recruits on their first hand grenade toss. That's why the sarge stands close so he can rip it out of their hands if they pull the pin and the handle flies off and they freeze.

IMO AP deserves enhanced respect. It's about like chlorate sulfur mixes, but way less dangerous handling than the chlorate red P mixes. I have handled both.

Red P/ chlorate got me twice, (minor amounts luckily) before I gave up on it. Sulfur chlorate never got me. It has to be abused to get you. Grinding it mixed is abuse.

It is/was used commercially in railway signal torpedoes, where there was never an accident that I am aware of. It had 1% chalk in it, to neutralize any sulfur acids, was paper wrapped, with a lead strip on it so it could be set on top of a rail, and the lead folded down around the top bar to hold it there till a wheel ran over it. It was dipped in shellac and very solid, and water/humidity proof.

They warned of danger ahead to a train engineer. Three big booms either meant hit the brake (trouble ahead) or the throttle (robbers shooting at you). Experience or wisdom determined which.

Nitro glycerine is about like ap. it is not feared by those used to working with it.

It's like walking the beams on a skyscraper building. Those with no familiarity shit their pants trying it. Those familar run around like monkeys.

Very bad if you fall off. You just make sure you don't do that.

Monkeys and squirrels can do the same thing. Bet you won't get up in a tree and jump from limb to limb though. You could, if you wanted to and trusted yourself.

Liquid nitro is carried around in a whiskey flask in a shirt pocket or back pocket by safe crackers. Never had any problem with it. You gotta REALLY piss it off to make it show its stuff.

It's like looking down the bore of a loaded shotgun. It's perfectly safe considering the near zero probability it will fire itself while you are looking, but few people can do it.

IF it was unsafe then no one could ship shotgun shells in commerce for one would be going off spontaneously somewhere every day if there was even a small probability of that happening. The probability of self firing is practically zero. The probability of a gun hammer falling by itself is near zero. The probability of a loaded and cocked auto pistol shooting you in the ass when you carry it under your belt is near zero which is why people do it all the time. Not all autos have external hammers. Those are almost always cocked and a loaded round in the chamber.

People don't think about risks much because it's not taught in schools. Driving to town and back is probably tens of thousands of times more dangerous numerically. A novice driver is in just as much danger as a novice playing with explosives, IMO.

You will have about a half dozen auto accidents during your lifetime if a very good driver. One may kill you.

You will have about zero gun accidents in your life even if you are a joe blow hunter. Very few of the accidentally dead people got that way from guns or explosives.

Think about all that for about ten minutes and it can change the way you view life and the world.

Most feared things ain't, and some unfeared things ought be greatly feared. That's what makes life such a challenge. Most dangers don't have a "danger" sign on them.

The exotic math and stuff will come later when you are able to handle it. Right now on this forum most of the need is common talk, and above all practical experience. "How dangerous" is important, but not more so than "how likely".

A good teacher can explain anything in simple words we all use. Fancy words are for put-on's and worse. I see a lot of that at professional meets, where you not only have to say the right thing, but say it in the right words.

[Mr Cool]

So, after that (not very) brief digression, back to ANAP. OK?

I guess words of wisdom belong in the "Links and Literature" or "Issues and Opinions" section.

"Nitro glycerine is about like ap. it is not feared by those used to working with it."

NG is not feared by those used to working with it. AP should be feared by everyone who works with it. It is a fact that peroxide bonds are weak (146 kJmol^-1 is an average O-O bond enthalpy, compared to 348 for a C-C, for example) and that peroxides are UNSTABLE!
You say that chlorate/sulphur mixtures have been used commercially without incident. Every reliable piece of pyrotechnical literature will strongly warn you against using these mixtures. AP has never been used commercially. What does that tell you? It's certainly not due to economy or power!

[rjche]

Yep, got carried away there. I type over 100 wpm so tend to not let typing hinder my communicating. I tend to go on as if we were conversing, in spells back and forth like the old ham radio guys did it. Each talked a while and then turned it back to the other.

I agree some peroxides are dangerous. The safety notices I find on the net tend to be boiled down to: Peroxides in general are unpredictable, but some are predictable. It's better to avoid all of them without specific information as to the one being dealt with.

Then they give some general instructions to protect chemists from harm should one be up against the most dangerous ones discovered, like never open a rusty lid, never keep one stored past a few months, never keep one more than weeks after its seal is broken, etc.

Yet, I have worked with hydrogen peroxide and never had it do anything absurd, in strengths up to 50%. I have stored it about a decade in the original plastic gallon jug, with NO special protection, in an attic for years, where it sees hot summer temps, and 0 winter temps, and the only thing noticed was the label got discolored, and its strength droped about a third.

Same with Methyl ethyl ketone peroxide which is used by the tons in fiberglass resin product mfg. I have known producers store it for years in barrelsm not on purpose but a barrel got misplaced, etc.

The benzol peroxide,in paste polyester resin hardners, I have seen lay around for several years,... so long that their vinyl tubes became brittle with age. Only had one do something bad. I laid it next to a running soldering iron, and the radiant heat caused it to "go" and it made clouds of white obnoxious fumes until it fizzed itself out. It blew red plastic goo all over stuff around it. It got hard when it cooled and stuck like glue.

The point is some peroxides are quite docile. I am sure there are some that can blow up in the making. Nitro can go red and clear the deck if allowed to run away.

What I see from AP so far from the posts on this board is no one had it take off on them. It seems to show hazards in keeping with other primaries in handling it. I agree it is not used commercially, and that appears to be due to its high vapor pressure and thus volatility. Commerce does not considered a long lived ingredient.

I am not an expert on AP, but I have played with things from nitrogen triodide and armstrong mix, which are quite touchy, to pure AN which takes the cake for being a dud.

However I cannot argue with your statement that the bond is weak compared to others. Here is my view on explosives...

Many explosives exist. Temperature causes them to decompose. decomposition generally doubles for every 20 deg F. It is the temperature of a detonation wave that causes the progressive detonation of more material. The rate of rise of that temp is significant.

As the temperature of storage gets near the spontaneous decomposition temp of a compound, it becomes progressively more sensitive to initation by any outside energy source. That outside force must push it from where it exists to over its "edge". Then a propagating chain reaction decomposition sets in. If a certain energy is released per decomposition, and the temp is already near the edge, in all material present, then it is "easy" to relatively easier to initiate it.

Thus AN is much easier to initate above about 85 F.

If it's cold (compared to its decomposition temp) the energy of the decomposition of one molecule cannot raise the closest one across its threshold, and it will not propagate.

Thus in forensics, dipping a bomb into liquid nitrogen fairly reliably causes the primer to be unable to initate an explosion, or in some cases do more than burn itself.

As I see it, initiation is a relative matter of how much external energy is needed to push a compound over its edge, and if that first decomposition results in enough to push a neighbor over then it MAY propagate. To propagate reliably it must be pushed way over the edge, and the resulting increase in energy must be able to push the adjacent molecules well over their edge, and then things violently chain react.

The coupling of energy is mechanical mostly but some is also radiant. In optically clear (to IR mostly but also to high energy UV radiation) explosives radiant transmission can carry the energy past adjacent molecules and fire ones deep in the undecomposed zone. These could have very high speed detonation fronts. Mechanical forces tend to be limited to the speed of sound in the temp and pressure existing.

Radiant types of detonation fronts predominate in nuclear explosions, where radiating energy forms reach other yet stable nuclei at near light speeds.

That said, some peroxides are relatively stable in a practical sense. A few are treacherous. The word of mouth from instructors is to avoid all of them, because as a group they are dangerous.

The say the same thing about picrates.

Let one person have an accident and the word spreads among those not familiar with much, and maybe worried about liability of students, that we avoid all of those types of chemical reactions. To get compliance the compounds are demonized.

Hype tends to exceed reality on many things today. I feel that if AP was as dangerous as some warnings imply, that the posts here would be filled with tales of disaster.

I have not yet found a dangerous indication from it, but not being expert on it that may be luck. Don't know. I do know it is much more stable than armstrong mixture (which was used commercially in Vietnam foot exploding personnel detectors), and chlorate sulfur mixes which were long used commercially, yet present hype tends to suggest they cannot be mixed at all without disaster. Not so. They cannot be abused without disaster. Most people get abusive with familiarity, and the compounds put them in their place, by reminding them of their violent nature.

However a lot of this is in the realm of personal experience.

Another example is dynamite. I have abused that stuff in almost every way imaginable and never got it to go off unless hit by projectile going over mach 2. Hammering it didn't do it. Throwing cases of it around didn't do it. Running over it with a truck didn't do it.

Those not familiar with dynamite freeze up if some is near them. They don't know what to expect so fear the worst imagination can produce

I am sure if the forum members were playing with armstrong mix we would have many posts of burnt fingers, or worse depending on how much was made. What experience reveals tends to have more credibility than general rumors.

True I have heard that wild mixing of organic peroxides had cleaned off some lab benches and done in one or two experimenters, but that happens in many professions where people have bad luck. volcanists occasionally step on unhardened lava and have root injuries. One or two dissappeared altogether. That does not cause the others to leave it alone though. They flit about over it like monkeys.

The trouble with passed on warnings is they tend to get added to with each transmission.

However my advice is: treat AP with considerable caution until you are familiar with it. Using small quantities test how much physical abuse it will take before exploding. grind some, heat some, spark it. I sparked a lighter flint onto a bb sized ball of AP and could NOT get it to puff off. Luck? I wore the flint out. Yet it fires well in a fuse or filament type ignition.

I feel that I could probably press it with many hundreds psi and not explode it but haven't proven that yet. For example in a .25 inch diameter (BC diameter) cap tubing, the plunger has an area a tad less than 1/20th square inch. Ten pounds force on the plunger causes a 200 psi pressure on the contents. Great pressures exist in cap pressing machines.

A couple pounds on the ram seems to take it up near density 1.0. Where it might go with ten pounds I haven't tried. It may go farther or stop, if the air spaces have been removed by that 2 lb force.

The general recommendation is to press all primaries in a safety shielded rig. Good advice IMO. I haven't heard personally of anyone setting some off by gradually applied pressure though.

As for AP, when formed and air dried, it seems to have a fluffy form that has a density of about 0.3gm/cc. If wetted to get all the air out of it then it sinks so its above 1 gm/cc. Some of it apparently has included air in the crystal so they float. They just will not sink.

As example of warnings, we are told never to tamp explosive with a steel ram. Yet for decades they did just that till one man got a ram driven through his head. He survived after the doc pulled out the 2 inch diameter steel bar that went in under the chin and out the top of his headm but that caused all to avoid metal rams from then on.

Nitro was shipped here and there with never any problem till one railway express (the UPS of long ago) worker carried a bottle that had set in the summer sun all day, and dropped it off the dock onto concrete. I believe there was about a quart of it, and it did complain at that indignity by removing some of the dock and some essential parts of the careless worker. Thereafter NG was NOT accepted for shipment anywhere.

AN was also shipped like salt until the WW2 Texas city explosion where an enormous amount of it caught fire and exploded. Fortunately it's still shipped and didn't get the usual panic exaggeration of its danger because it was during wartime, and was heavily censored.

My point is to take general warnings to heart until you learn the thing you are dealing with is not of that nature.

The law now requires we never carry caps and dynamite on the same vehicle or together. I never had a cap explode accidentally. NEVER. (The one that did unexpectedly explode on me, I whanged the hell out of, NO accident, it was deliberate) A cap has to explode before it being near dynamite means anything at all. In mines men did carry them together, to their work places. Never heard of an accident due to it exploding.

Generally keeping them seperate is good advice. Transportation laws require it. I am not sure science of caps and dynamite does. Other things we do are far more likely and deadly than a cap going off unexpectedly.

Which gets back to q point made earlier. We tend to form opinions of what is and what is not, based on wild speculations or hearsay.
In really ignorant about what's warned of, heed the advice. When experience proves it not so, then adjust your attitude.

Also fear and respect are vastly different things. One should respect AP. If one fears it they ought not go near it at all, until its understood well enough to loose the fear, and you have a sound basis for how much respect you give it. That is good advice in dealing with anything which has power.

That's my attitude on the matter, and if it's different than anyone else's, then that's nature. We differ in our approaches to things.

I do carry on compared to other posters, but I have been used to the indian way of communicating. You talk to an indian and watch his head. You tell him, and he says ugh. You keep doing that over and over until he not only says ugh, but says ugh ugh ugh, and nods his head up and down and shows signs of illumination.

I may say things repeatedly, but I do successfully communicate, even to the slower listeners. Some instructors I suffered under only communicated to the top 10% of a class. I try to communicate to the lower 10% because they paid their money too, and they deserve to leave understanding things. That may be good or bad, but again its the way I am. I ain't gonna change now. If my writing has too much taters and not enough meat, dine elsewhere.

Your opinion, Cool, is valuable as to relative strength of peroxide bonds. As to AP dangers, to me AP doesn't seem all that bad compared to what I am used to dealing with. It's up in the front row, but so's a lot of other things. Climbing a kitchen ladder is statistically more dangerous than fooling with explosives. Such ladders kill many more people than do explosives (excepting those explosives USA dumps on third world people of course).

As to my attempt to find most brissant apan, of course if you take pure ap and put one prill of an in it that is the most brissant mixture. I misused the word brisant and should have said powerful. As mixing ratios go, it is obvious that 0% AN is most brissant, and 100% an the least so. MY bad. Thanks for pointing that out.

I was approaching it from the standpoint of optimizing the explosive power of AN, which occurs at 12%.

Cool is right that the problem can also be looked at as contaminating the high brisance of AP by adding An. I chose to look at it as improving the low brisance of AN by adding ap to it.

Having said all that I believe all can see where I come from, and more probably needs not be said.

[nbk2000]

"Power" is a relative term.

AP may be more "brisant", but AN will produce a larger volume of gases upon explosion, which may be more useful, depending on the desired effect.

I find nothing wrong with rjche's posting style. Some of our most knowledgeable members post rarely, such as polverone, code blue, and a few others. Better that than a hoard of useless posts of blithering studidity.

[Mr Cool]

Well yes, it depends on the desired use. More AN would be better for moving stuff or taking down buildings. But still, 0% OB doesn't necessarily mean optimum power in any sense of the word for binary mixtures. Although it is a good place to start, and probably can't be improved upon without much experimentation.

(Just for the record, I do like your posting style rjche, but try to keep it on topic <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> But now I will be a hypocrite, and go off topic again. Sorry.)

The point I was trying to make is that there's no need at all to make any peroxides ever. If you can't make any other primaries, spend a few $ and make an EBW detonating system that will last for many hundreds or even thousands of shots. If you want to sensitise AN, use NM or a nitrate ester. I'm sure everyone will agree that AP is one of the more dangerous explosives, even if they don't quite agree on exactly how dangerous it is. I'm saying that using it is a foolish risk to take when there are much safer alternatives that are easy to make and use.

"Yet, I have worked with hydrogen peroxide and never had it do anything absurd, in strengths up to 50%."

But H₂O₂ is not much like AP chemically. H-O bonds are around 30% stronger than C-O bonds, AP is cyclic, which (especially in the dimer) can introduce stresses into the ring, AP is a much larger molecule and more prone to shaking itself to pieces at elevated temperatures, etc. And you say that even hydrogen peroxide dropped in concentration by a third after a decade, in a sealed container!!
It was my belief that MEKP was always stored in MEK, but I may be wrong. I can't believe they store it pure though, since it is known to be a primary explosive. Even lead azide, among the safest primaries, would not be stored pure in barrel fulls.
Radiant heat from a soldering iron, which probably doesn't amount to more than 20W in total, caused benzoyl peroxide to decompose quite violently. And that isn't pure. Not what I'd call docile!

Didn't Anthony have a near disaster with a pile of AP? And Atropine suffered badly when HMTD spontaneously detonated. Two examples of organic peroxides, the "safe" ones, turning nasty. And that's only out of a thousand or so people here. Possibly more people have accidents, but we neve hear about it because for one reason or another they never come here again.

Be careful not to confuse stability with sensitivity, they are far from being the same thing. Many picrates are incredibly sensitive, but will happily sit for decades without doing anything at all if left along. Some peroxides may be much less sensitive, but will decompose at a greater rate. I'm sure you're right that they are not as dangerous as many people say. But surely it is a good thing to exagerate warnings, rather than to say, for example, "It's been known to detonate without warning, but is normally safe so go ahead and make it"?

"I do know it is much more stable than armstrong mixture (which was used commercially in Vietnam foot exploding personnel detectors)"

These were made wet with freon, and were designed to detonate at the slightest touch after drying.

"Hammering it didn't do it. Throwing cases of it around didn't do it. Running over it with a truck didn't do it."

rjche, I urge you not to do any more of these experiments! Because if it did go off, you wouldn't be very far away!

"As example of warnings, we are told never to tamp explosive with a steel ram. Yet for decades they did just that till one man got a ram driven through his head. He survived after the doc pulled out the 2 inch diameter steel bar that went in under the chin and out the top of his headm but that caused all to avoid metal rams from then on."

Bloody good job too! Even if it only happens once in a million, it's stupid to take the risk if you don't have to, by using wood or plastic rams!! Once in a million is a tiny risk, but still, it could be you!!

"The law now requires we never carry caps and dynamite on the same vehicle or together. I never had a cap explode accidentally. NEVER."

But I'm sure you will agree that it'd be better to have them seperate if one did go off. Even if the risk of an accidental detonation is the same (and negligable) in both cases, there's a much greater hazard if the cap is with a load of dynamite, so it makes sense to have them seperate. Just because a cap hasn't gone off so far, doesn't mean one won't tomorrow.

Well, that's my view on the matter. It's all about what you consider to be an acceptable risk combined with hazard. For example, I have nothing against making small amounts of AP, even storing them for a while, because the hazard from a gram is small. But I would never make more than that.

[TheBear]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Climbing a kitchen ladder is statistically more dangerous than fooling with explosives. Such ladders kill many more people than do explosives (excepting those explosives USA dumps on third world people of course).</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I think you typed ahead of yourself there, although the number of accidents may be greater I strongly doubt that climbing a kitchen ladder is more dangerous than fooling with explosives. And remember that it's often old and weak people who kill themselves.

A couple of questions regarding AP-production:

I've been wondering if 19,5% H2O2 (it's labeled that way) means it's 19,5% by volume or weight. (I assume it's by weight?)

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Then make a solution of about a teaspoon of light corn syrup in a pint of water, and wash the AP again with that. This will leave a surface coat of sticky syrup on the dried AP to cushion its crystals from mechanical events.

That is not enough syrup on the surface to affect reaction rates. It will improve the handling of AP and reduce its mechanical sensitivity some. A similar thing is done to lead azide in the final wash using dextrose, to calm its mechanical sensitivity</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">-Interesting, doesn't it tend to make lumps? What is corn syrup? I've never heard of it, is it the same thing as corn starch?

[andreas]

Sorry to upset you. But the thing I wanted to point out was:
About 99% of the forumites know the procedure for AP.
And that it is important to do at low temperatures to get a trimer version. So pointing out a procedure for ap that can be found in over a thousand places on the net, is IMHO not very usefull. As for calculating the moles to practical units. Fluid ounces are not very practical for a lot of people however a mole can be converted by anybody with a basic understanding of chemistry to a unit that suits their need. Calculating the OB of APAN however is! I'm not saying I am an expert, as I merely do this as a hobby. This however doesn't mean I don't have a understanding in chemistry, nor lack the willingness to learn.
As for my typing,not everyone on this forum is a native speaker off the Englisch language, as you could have seen in my profile.

The main thing I wanted to point out was try to keep your post free from obvious information found everywhere on the net.
And keep it to your topic.

I hope this clears it up a little I don't want to bitch on anybody, but

[rjche]

OK, no hard feelings remain. We all have trouble with english, especially in choice of proper words to convey our attitude. I don't look up people's profiles, so I didn't know you have trouble with english.

FYI, your use of the word babbling, conveyed the meaning that you intended to ridicule. Conveying that meaning will almost always fetch an amplified return of the same on forums. Babbling is usually reserved to refer to the verbalization of an idiot or some such mentally disabled individual. Babies for example, babble before they learn to speak. The word is derived from the tower of babble from the bible where everyone was struck crazy and spoke weird sounds that no one else could understand.

as for my overdoing explanations, you ought see me explaining something really dangerous to a novice. It gets long and repetitious, for they have a way of misunderstanding even the words NO NYET hun un, etc. I was talking to the wee chemists among us, for the experts need no discussion at all. They tend to orbit in the clouds (intellectually speaking), and only rarely reach down to prod a novice away from the abyss.

As to the many posts everywhere on AP they vary a great deal. Some even claim using H2SO4 makes dimer and HCL makes trimer. The quantities they suggest to mix vary wildely, as do the temperatures, and thus so do the ratios of dimer to trimer.

Fortunately both "mers" both "go off" but having dimer in the mix would cause my post to give a incorrect OB in direct relation to that contamination.
C9H18O6 (Trimeric) C6H12O4 (Dimeric)

So, I started off showing how to get the trimer AP, which I was going to optimize.

As to the post asking whether the % on HP product is by weight or volume, the stuff sold as 35% or 50% is by mass or weight. I do not know what volume one could use if stating it by volume. I don't think anyone makes 100% stuff, so nobody would have a use of a volume % mixture unless they were math freaks.

The word volume on consumer HP bottles is a mystery to me. The 3%HP says its ten volume. Can't be ten volumes of water to one of HP for that would come out much stronger than 3%. It could refer to many things, maybe the volumes of O gas released for each volume of the solution.

(When HP is destabilized by its environment, oxygen comes off as O and attacks anything near it thus bleaching colors, then what isn't consumed that way unites to O2, and fizzes off. That is my understanding of how HP works).

At this url the subject is discussed to cheese makers:
<a href="http://www.cheresources.com/dilutionzz.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.cheresources.com/dilutionzz.shtml</a> God awful mess of calculating there.

At this url the subject of HP is discussed:

<a href="http://www.conncoll.edu/offices/envhealth/MSDS/healthservices/hydrogenperoxide.html" target="_blank">http://www.conncoll.edu/offices/envhealth/MSDS/healthservices/hydrogenperoxide.html</a>

Also the bottle of 3% HP in my pantry leaves off the 10 volume designation, and just says it's 3%.

It states it has .001% phosphoric acid as stabilizer, which means HP is more stable in a slightly acid PH.

That also means just mixing acetone in 3% HP would slowly make AP in a refrigerator, without adding any additional acid.

I appologize for being rude for I have made some head banging errors in trying to speak foreign languages and insulting hell out of someone in a foreign country.

I remember an organic chemist decades ago telling me about a famous american beauty product which expanded to export status and sold somewhere in S america. Sales were zilch and it inquired to learn its famous product name meant manure water down there.

Such is life... it has big teeth, and bites us in the ass every time we bend over.

[andreas]

Doesn't really matter, I don't think englisch is very hard but sometimes it is difficult to find the proper words to convey you're thoughts. As to my reply it wasn't really intended to flame.

I must agree with you that for some people you need to go in to such details but I think most people on this forum are educated enough to teach stuff to themselves.

Last but not least. Dealing with such large amounts of primary isn't a safe thing anyway you put it. I must honestly say I would never make apan and even handling 1 gram of ap scares the shit out of me.
I would much prefer handling 50 grams of NG than 10 grams of ap.

But this is just my 2 cents, on the subject.

[Mr Cool]

Sorry, another OT reply by me, but it's funny and refers to the difficulty of communicating in a foreign language!

My French teahcer told us that he went on a holiday to Spain, but he does not speak very good Spanish and his accent wasn't good.
So when he went in to a petrol station, he tried to say "Fill it up with "super unleaded" petrol."
He actually said "Fill me up with a super penis."
Lol.

[spydamonkee]

Mr Cool... hehe

I also really like reading your posts rjche, they are very informative and well laid out.

It is good to have other people who will actually test the limits of a explosive while using all the warnings you have recieved as guidelines as i get quite annoyed at hearing things like "X grams AP will explode under its own weight!!!" total unfounded bullshit to my knowledge as over about 6 months i have made about 5kg AP (yes 5kg) and one of the tests i did was placing a small portion of AP into a vice and slowly winding it shut as hard as i could & nothing happened :p

Back on topic: I use alot of APAN for recreational blasting, weather it is Film Canisters or 5kg APCAN buried into the side of a cliff :D
I also use it alot as a booster for ANFO and it works quite well, good because it is cheap and simple to make and set off so it is good to find the % of AP - AN for the best OB and Power

<small>[ February 11, 2003, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: spydamonkee ]</small>

[rjche]

First off, I had no way of testing the purity of the AP, and presumed that making it at about 35 F would give high percent of trimer. It would take IR spectroscopy to see if dimer was in there also and how much.

As for the sensitivity of AP to friction, some tests:

Place about BB size lump of AP on anvil and grind it hard with 3 lb steel hammer, pressing down and light, could not cause any snapping or cracking nor ignition.

Place about a third BB amount in glass mortar, scattered about in small flecks and ground with glass pestle caused immediate snapping and cracking indicating detonation. No flames.

Conclusion, Two possibilities:
One detonation is a temperature dependant thing. Grinding between steel on steel kept the friction temp from rising to that needed for detonation due to the high heat conductivity of the steel. Note the steel was about 40F, and results may be different if steel at 100F was used. That was not tested.

Second possibility is the mortar and pestle have rough surfaces. It MIGHT be that the grinding there caused AP to fill the low cavities, and when the pestle rode over and compressed it AND heated from friction, some particles, that they were able to communicate their detonation to a larger group of crystals, causing a snap. Glass also has much less heat conductivity than steel, so it may have allowed temps to rise much more than when steel was used.

Third speculation, When the hammer was grinding a layer of AP which would not explode, there were crystals in the mix which were laying crosswise to others above and below. Crystal fractures had to be occuring, but no detonations. This means crystal fractures in the usual sizes made with the instructions I gave, do not rise to the energy level to detonate AP.

Conclusion if using AP where friction is unavoidable do test minute quantities several times to assure that the methhod is safe. After its proven PROBABLY safe proceed with TLC in avoiding unneccessary abuse of the stuff.

As for handling AP and NG, the man doing all that found no significant difference in danger, and he has handled both so has valuable opinion. My opinion is NG is a relatively safe material that has so frightened those with no experience that they have demonized it mercilessly. Some idiot chem prof ranting to students about peroxides and NG, etc. can condition them forever to believe that. (Remember many schools do not teach students how to think but only teach them how to believe.) The legislators are abysmal idiots on technology and they pollute society with their ignorance via laws.

As for the pressing test, it proved that merely breaking crystals in a larger amount will not cause detonation. I have no suggestion for what may happen if a 1 inch cube single crystal deliberately grown to see, would do if crushed. My speculation is that it would merely crush.

Also there was a test using 22LR hulls for shrapnel evaluation. Pure compressed AP (hard press by hand on a hull full of fluff, then more fluff added until the hull was 3/4 full of compressed AP, and a RG58 fuse put in and crimped, caused about 15 pieces same as M Fulminate.
That detonated from a small spark at the cable end caused by a stun gun at the other end.

A live 22lr shell had the lead removed with pliers, and AP sifted down with the powder till it had a AP showing among the powder grains the RG58 fuse pressed against.It also made 15 pieces of sharapnel but louder bang to the sand filled quart plastic container it was fired in. It would not fire from the stun gun,but required a spark from a neon sign transformer. The spark from the end of the cable from a stun gun is piddling compared to that at the gun because the pulse at the gun is very short and sassy, but it can charge the cable only so much and results in a rather feeble spark at the other end, appearing about the same intensity as that from a pizeo butane ignitior spark.

Those "believing" hype about things develop a degree of fear that probably protects them, but it also keeps them from doing some things they could do. To each his own on that matter. I will say that some intelligent experimenting with anything (not dud bombs though) can go a long way to raising one's confidence to dispel the fear. Fear is dangerous when dealing with dangerous things. It inhibits your thinking, and always there is the danger the subconcious will get in panic mode and freeze you up at a moment when serious danger is occuring. One has to personally experience this to learn that it is real, and you have zero control over it after it happens. It can keep you from running from an approaching train, in some cases, if the panic level is intense. Again to test it go onto a flat roof 3 stories high or so, and try to put both toes even with the edge of the roof. You ought experience some strange things going on. Some will freeze up, and can only go backwards, commands to go forward are ignored by the body. The SC can calculate as it does this for you all the time. It knows that with both toes at the edge, any unbalance forward cannot be resisted, and IT will be seriously harmed, so it refuses that command. That is different than when wild panic sets in for then the SC shuts down everything except heart beat and eyeballs. It may stay that way for several minutes. Some of the shut down method is chemical hormones and they take time to wash out of the system. Just be aware that you are not always in control. If you begin to feel queezy, or break out in a sweat, when fearing something you are getting close. Another sensation is a tightening of the chest as if something is squeezing in on it. These reactions can ramp up rapidly. My experience is they double in intensity every 5 to ten seconds, and can be totally disabling within 20 seconds or so. Usually we get ample warning from strange sensations not experienced before, that there is rebellion going on in the body control system. Time then to back off, run like hell, or start digging, depending on what you figure may help.

An Isralie website discusses suicide bombers. It says AP is a favorite with Palestinians. It also says some have fingers missing, etc, but that may be hype to scare off would be arabs. The quantities they use to propel bb's, nuts, nails, etc are in the several KG range. Mistakes with that do not result in loss of fingers, but loss of body. Therefore I suspect their comments about fingers missing.

The url is: <a href="http://www.waronline.org/en/terror/suicide.htm" target="_blank">http://www.waronline.org/en/terror/suicide.htm</a>

Searching google for suicide bomber acetone peroxide will turn up more info. That can give one an idea what happens when a pound or so of any HE goes off near the body.

[rjche]

Well Gotz site disappeared, but before that he commented on trying the formula posted at the top for AP, two ways.

First he used those ratios and kept temps no higher than 8 C, and got a certain quantity (within 24 hour after mixing) of about 8 units by vol in his reaction vessel. The residual liquid was drained and showed trivial additional product on standing another 24 hours at approx 10C.

Second he used the same ratios and allowed temps to go as high as 45C on peaks, and got a quantity of about 10 units in the 48 hour period. The residual liquid was drained and showed no additional product after standing another 24 hours at approx 10C.

He commented that the higher temp allowed about 6 units product in about 2 hours.

He could find no difference in the two products as to friction, drop, brisance, etc. The crystal sizes were the same, color snow white, just no difference he could find.

This makes me wonder at what temp one must let things go to produce dimer. 45C is quite warm. Anyone have any info on making dimer deliberately in nearly pure form? I draw blanks trying to find data on the subject, in chem references on the web.

This causes recall of one poster who said he just mixed the stuff in cool temp range, and had abundant product in a short time, so why go to all the trouble cooling, icing, etc. Perhaps he was right. It appears at least that if mixed in balanced quantities just about letting it do what it wants, ends up with as good product as a lot of fussing over it.

That causes recall of several references saying it's the easiest homemade high explosive of them all. In his opinion its also not much more dangerous than MF, or NG, nor chlorate mixes. He likened it to some sensitive high expl that military used to use, like nitrostarch bricks. They were not to be broken in pieces for smaller charges, but he couldn't remember anyone actually setting the stuff off by manhandling it. One had to go at it to cause small quantities to go.

Anyway he was a good anon source to talk to on that weird forum, but so far its staying gone. A big problem when a forum goes is letting folks know where it reforms if at all. When everyone is anon, disruption is kinda fatal.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

For info on making dimeric AP, look in federoff vol 1, A41-A45.

[IPN]

I made some calculations for HMTDAN with OEZO´s method and I got the perfect amounts of HMTD and AN to be:

HMTD = 18g
AN = 82g

(Could someone check if those figures are correct?)

<small>[ March 03, 2003, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: IPN ]</small>

[xyz]

They look about right.

[0EZ0]

IPN, they look right. I assume you ended up with the percentages of AN=82% and HMTD=18% respectively.

Beware of residual acidity in the Ammonium Nitrate if you mix it with HMTD. Just to be safe and keep all fingers intact, I recommend you thoroughly mix in a small percentage (2% around about) of Sodium Bicarbonate to neutralise any acid within the comp.

[IPN]

Yes I just rounded them up so it would look simpler.

Oh, and thanks for the tip, I was aware that the AN is acid in nature but I never had had any accidents with it but it is better to be safe that sorry so from this on i will add some bicarbonate to the mix.

[kingspaz]

0EZ0, its not residual acid. AN is itself acidic!

[0EZ0]

Woops :D . That was a good slip of the mind. Thanks kingspaz.

It shouldn't need to be said that no metals at all should come into contact with a HMTDAN mix. Go for paper and plastics only with the detonator and charge casings. I also wouldn't leave this mixture sitting around. Mix together just before loading the charge to minimise risk. But I'm sure you would already know these points. So I'll shut up now.

Happy Blasting :p

[rjche]

Ran across a cached search engine document that said ap had been stored plastic soda bottles with an inch of water over it's surface. It said there was no danger of removing the lid for the water kept the AP wet and it was insensitive in that form except to detonators.

I speculate those bottles can withstand a lot of pressure, and that any attempt by the AP to sublime would quickly reach its vapor pressure limit and it would just stop further vaporization at that point.

There may be some pressure upon opening the cap, so that would need to be done very gradually so as not to cause a soda pop type effervescent spewing out of contents. Experience would rapidly determine if this was any problem.

I have no means to check this out, but it sounds reasonable.

Volatile solids are stored in pressure containers successfully.

Simplest example is storing mothballs, either naphthalene or dichlorobenze type, in a glass fruit jar, or can, or even a thick plastic bag, )as done inside their paper commercial box) where they will store indefinitely.

When removed, mothballs appear to sublime at about the same rate as posts describe for AP.

Some experimenter in an area where such can be done, might seal a bit in a small plastic bottle, (with water) and verify the post statements.

I do not know what the vapor pressure is of AP at room temp, but suspect it is not very much or it would disappear as fast as acetone does.

Acetone has a small vapor pressure of trivial amount for it is sold in commerce in gallon tin cans, and in metal drums which would likely burst at 5 psi or so.

Soda pop bottles can withstand internal pressure above 50 psi in larger 3 liter sizes, and probably well over 100 in the smaller one drink sizes. Therefore I would expect no danger of a bottle bursting, although freezing would be a problem if not buried deeply enough.

In any event if this post's statements are confirmed, then large amounts of AP can be prepared at once and stored safely buried in 3 liter soda bottles. That would allow the conversion of entire gallons of peroxide at once, raising yield as well as reducing the mess and trouble with making it.

Fast dehydration of wet AP removed from storage could be done by draining it and washing with any alcohol. Methyl is cheapest from farm stores where it is used to fill tractor tires as antifreeze.
Then drying the alcohol, which would take only an hour or so.

Normal dehydration would be done the same way its done upon freshly making the AP, which takes about 24 hours or so at room temp of about 70F, and 60% humidity.

It would always be wise to test any dried AP for sensitivity using the methods described in above posts as to rubbing it with steel on steel, and with wood on wood, and smacking it with wood on wood, and steel on steel, until experience was gained that it does not change sensitivity by such storage, from what freshly made stuff has.

A golden rule is to test for all possibilities to avoid accidents, until personal experience is obtained. Speculations may guide one to experiment, but they do not replace experimental proof.

When dealing with anything containing lots of power or capable of disastrous outcomes, never speculate or guess at consequences, but always test to prove facts. Speculators tend to end up badly.

Make sure all your discoveries of disastrous outcomes are done with very small events.

[Anthony]

In the past I have stored AP underwater in a 500ml plastic coke bottle. I kept it for several months before using it, and it seemed normal in use, although I didn't properly test it.

I can recall no pressurisation of the bottle when opened.

[ShockWave]

Since newyears eve I haven't detonate anything, the kitchen was clean all the bags with AN and all the other stuff I have hidden in boxes in my garage, but Novemer 2002 I store about 15 Grams dry AP, to see if it would be usefull for APAN.

Something else, Not far from here is a small lake where we kitesurf almost everyday, and their was this sign: "Swimming at your own risk" but this sign was at a metal pole which is about 8cm thick and 2,5meters high, the metal is very strong, the pole is round and made of the same steel as streetlighting and stuff.

We wanted to remove this pole since it is very dangerous for us kitesurfers, so we dug and we dug the whole day, but since it is 5 meters away from the water at the beach, you can't dig very deep because the water will fill the hole. Later at midnight I drove with my old"race"BMW over this stupid pole because he had to get out of the beach!! Kaboom, we hit the pole very hard but now the pole was on the ground but still stuck at the ground. GRRRR.
For hours we kept digging but it had no use.

So their was only one option, a BIG HE !!

This 15gr AP which was about 6 months old would not detonate ANNM that is what we all know, AP is good for about 2 weeks.

I did some tests a year ago, but even 10 gr well pressed "OLD" AP wouldn't detonate 100gr ANNM.
But now I made a APAN from 10gr AP and 10gr AN so ratio 1:1 and a 3gr AP Blasting Cap.

The main charge was a coca cola bottle full with CANNM, about 1,5kg I think.
So I used the APAN as the booster and it worked very well !

For me this is great news, storing 10gr AP at a safe place is not very dangerous and I think it still can be used after 1 year or more, for me this is a great, safe, easy and storeable primary :)

Ohh and about the pole....well, I thought it would be damaged a bit so we could brake it out, but after the detonation their was no pole left, a huge crater and in the middle their was about 10cm pole left so it broke in pieces, the rest of the pole is gone, CANNM is stronger then I thougt, I have broken many big rocks with ANNM but this steel is also no problem.


A picture of the pole is at my site very soon.




Q: AP has his max. power the first 2 weeks, after 6 months it looses much power, but what about 2 years orso, Will it still detonate or will it just burn slowly, who can tell ?

[Al Nobel]

I would like to know why AP seems to lose its power after long term storage.Chemically seen Tri/Dicycloacetonperoxid stays Tri/Dicycloacetonperoxid even if a bit of it sublimates.

[DBSP]

I seriously don't know what's wrong with your AP, last week I detonated a small 50g ANNM charge with 1.5g of AP that I've had since the day before new years eve. No problem at all, a cpouple of days after that charge I detonated 30g of ANNM with 1,5g of HMTD I've had scince august or something.

I've never experiensed that my AP has degraded in power after storage. But I'm very thorrough when making it, never above 10* C and I nutrolise it afterwords, checking the PH with lithmus paper to make shure it's neutral.

And if my memory doesn't fail me you make your AP at about 40* C...? could that have something to do with your fucked up ap?

I've had APAN stored (accidentally forgot about a small ammount of leftovers ) for about a month, that worked too..


EDIT: btw 1,5kg you say, how did you figure out how much NM to add if you don't know how much AN you've got? just pour some in or..?

[ShockWave]

My scale is broken and can't weight my AN or NM, so yes, I had to poor in the NM with some luck, I have done this many many times with a scale so I can see/feel now how much NM I have to add. btw. it doenst really matter ANNM in ratio 5:1 or 5:2 both will work fine.


And yes tis old AP was produced at high temp. but I have made AP a couple of times at low Temp. but was not different.

Low or High Temp. produced AP will both lose most of it's power after 6 months I think.

[Anthony]

It too have used ~6 month old AP/HMTD and noticed no loss of potency. Neither have I noticed profound sublimation, except in rare circumstances. This is attribute to the climate here, but power loss, I cannot explain.

[Nevermore]

Originally posted by Anthony
It too have used ~6 month old AP/HMTD and noticed no loss of potency. Neither have I noticed profound sublimation, except in rare circumstances. This is attribute to the climate here, but power loss, I cannot explain.

I made a few tests about sublimation, i started from a "5 pence size" of Ap, on a poker card, in winter and i did the last one two days ago, well here are the results..

during the winter, the Ap is very slowly sublimating, so slowly that is possible to leave for 2-3 weeks before completely sublimate (at 10C)

in the spring, around 20C it took much less to sublimate, around one week or maybe a little more, and while sublimating the mass started to become spongy, like the smaller cristals went out faster and the bigger remained longer, also on the border it was possible to see some bigger cristals.

the last trial i made two days ago, was at a temp around 30-35C, the Ap took a little less than a week to completely sublimate, leaving the paper sligthly dusty, after two days was heavily spongy,
started to build bigger cristals but they went away too, leaving the paper bent like when you wet and then dry it, and very dusty.

Is interesting to note that when the mass is spongy the smell of Ap changes slightly becoming much less strong and more gentle.

I tried to put a small half pea size Ap under direct sun, on a black paper, while the temp outside reached 45C, at the evening i didn't find anything, althought i can't be sure it wasn't blown out from the wind..

[kingspaz]

Nevermore, thats quite interesting. if you conduct any more trials or want to conduct more then it could be useful to experiment with a larger batch and perfrom drop tests every 2 days until it has completely sublimated (frequency of testing dependent on temperature of course). a graph could then easily be drawn up to show how AP's sensitivity changes with storage.

[Arthis]

I made 30 g AP, standing in a beaker on my desk. For over 3 weeks now. Large cristals appeared, but there are more than 20 g left. At home, we have temperatures that reach 35°C everyday. (pretty hot there, it's bad... :()
I don't know why your AP sublimates so fast.

[btw, maybe should we stop and continue an old AP topic in the right section ???]

[yarrak]

A friend of mine wants to detonate 500gr Apan (12% ap) in a pvc pipe. Is it safe to carry this explosive in a backpack? He has no way of preparing it on the field.

[pdb]

A friend of mine wants to detonate 500gr Apan (12% ap) in a pvc pipe. Is it safe to carry this explosive in a backpack? He has no way of preparing it on the field.

You can say Farewell to your friend... unless you are your friend...

If you are totally unaware of the risks associated with AP manipulation as you seem to be, suspend your experiments and READ !

[Child-of-Bodom]

A friend of mine wants to detonate 500gr Apan (12% ap) in a pvc pipe. Is it safe to carry this explosive in a backpack? He has no way of preparing it on the field.

Please, do not carry it in a backback, as it is far too close to your body.
Better use bags on your bike or something, and take the primary and the secondary separatly to the blasting place. since AP sublimises, and make the mix at the latest moment. Although I would not recommend AP to anyone...still good luck, and have a nice blast!

[nuclearattack]

12% APAN shouldn't be so sensitive, it can be handle safely if you know what you are doing well. I have some doubts about your friend's skill so be very carefull!
Anyway it is better to place the pipe in the backpack because 500gr are a lot of HE and even if you place it in a bag you will be killed or seriously wounded. :(
At this point if the charge explode on your back you will notice nothing and your body will be scattered in pet food chunks! A painless death is far more better then a painfull agony or living.
Why everybody loves APAN? Simply try with ANNM or ANFO...these are very safe compounds. ;)

[The_Rsert]

Has anyone heard of a fuse-sensitv APAN?
Is this possible?

[The_Duke]

Has anyone heard of a fuse-sensitv APAN?
Is this possible?
R_sert you can FULLY detonate APAN with fuse if it is slightly confined, although I'm not sure the exact ratios, I can achieve a full dtt with 50/50 AN/TCAP. I'm sure that this could be altered slightly. ;)

Note that you can't use prills, (it never fully detonates), insted you use activated AN or atleast powder the stuff. ;)

[The_Rsert]

I while ago I heard something about the ratio of 57% AP.
I've no AP at the time, but will test it next time.

[V2A]

C = 10.81 x 9
H = 1.00 x 18
O = 15.99 x 6

AP = (10.81*9)+(1.00*18)+(15.99*6)
= 211.23


i have found a small error in your calculation!
you used the relative atomic mass of boron which is next to carbon on the periodic table.

when using the correct atomic mass of carbon AP is 222.23832 g/mole.

with this value OB for AP is -151.1833783%

the OB 0 mixture then is:

13.22129227% AP
86.77870773% AN

(i was calculating with AN = 80.04344 g/mole)

[Boomer]

I dont want to seem pedantic, but...

What is the use in giving 10 digit numbers if the second one is already wrong? Keeping it to 3 digits, as hardly anybody here has a better scale:

AN = 20% O2 -> %(AN) = 151/(151+20) = 88.3% -> rest = 11.7% AP !

Test1: 20.0% x 88.3g AN -> 17.7g O2
Test2: 151% x 11.7g AP -> 17.7g O2

You can calculate the other 7 digits if you want, but they are going to start with 88.xy : 11.xy , 88:12 being close enough (who knows his AN is 99.99% pure and dry?) :p

BTW does anybody know whether 12% APAN can go off without *really* abusing it? I tried a hammer, a mortar, a cigarette and a gas lighter, and never got a bang or more than slow burning with some puffing. In other words, at how low an AP content does APAN become a safe secondary, which can e.g. be tamped into a borehole? Has there ever been an accident caused by the APAN charge and not by the AP cap?

[Valinomycin]

I once had an APAN charge going off accidently. It detonated spontanously. When I examined the whole thing closer I noticed that a friend of mine who helps me sometimes accidently poured some left over HMTD into the AP.
In my experience APAN is extremely stable even long therm storage isn't impossible. Even a slam from a 15Kg Steel rod (dropped from 0.75m) didn't detonate APAN (11% AP)

[Rosco Bodine]

GB620498 is relevant to the discussion of APAN

US3166451 is not directly realted to APAN but describes
a similar composition having a different organic peroxide sensitizer .

[Diabolique]

I understand that triacetone triperoxide (I'm used to AP meaning ammonium perchlorate, and TATP for the peroxide of acetone) sublimates at room temperature. Does anyone know if this is true, and what is its vapor pressure? This can affect its usefulness.

Rjche, the difference between 'War and Peace" and a dime novel is that one is worth sitting down and reading cover to cover, the other likely isn't. No matter how long we work at a profession, the best of us will always remain students, forever learning.

[Dombum]

Do you think 1 gr HMTD will be enough to detonate HMTDAN?

[nbk2000]

You're asking a dead man a question. :rolleyes:

[Dombum]

ok now i know it.sry for stupid question

[Bert]

ok now i know it.sry for stupid question
After the act of necromancy attracted the Beast, the spelling and capitalization errors incited it to a disemboweling frenzy...

[Shadowmartyr]

I have a few questions that I can't seem to find the answer to anywhere, and yes I have UsedTFSE.

First off, I am in the very first stages of producing AP. From all of the stories I have heard this stuff sounds very dangerous, and I am even a bit scared to make it. But I have no other choice for a primary to detonate the ANFO, HMTD is out of the question since hexamine is no where to be found around where I live.

Does this APAN mixture make the AP less sensitive to shock and friction (obviously I know it does, but to a degree of how much compared to straight AP?).

Storage wise..

From all the research I've done I've learned not to use sealed air tight containers because of the crystal formation in the thread. And the safest way is to store it is under water or acetone.

For short term storage of straight AP crystals I thought of taking a glass jar with the crystals in it (10grams of less) filled with water about half way and then covering the glass container with a plastic wrap and then putting a rubber band around the plastic to keep it somewhat air tight and then keeping it in a fridge.

Would the storage method as described above be safe? And if it is safe could this method be used for the APAN?

I am sorry for all the questions but I've searched the forums and haven't found any questions as detailed as that. And the reason for the questions is I really do not want to lose any fingers or have something bad happen, I would get scared with a couple grams of the stuff I can't believe people have made 100 or more at a time :eek: .

Thank you.

[Alexires]

Shadowmartyr - Personally, I would treat the APAN like I treat AP. You are dealing with something that will kill you, so I don't see why any less caution should be used...

Again, personally, I wouldn't use rubber bands. Not because it is dangerous (in itself) but fucking around with elastic and AP doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I would use your plastic wrap, but just put a book or something relatively light on the top to seal it, but not crush the jar. That way you can easily remove the book and use as you see fit. Perhaps use a bit of clear acrylic (on the plastic wrap), so you can see if any crystals have formed, and if so, decide what you are going to do from there.

Treat APAN as if it were AP.....because it is *cough cough*.


I would recommend you check the thread on Acetone Peroxide.... if you are still around.

[ChippedHammer]

Using glass is a bad idea - whats wrong with plastic?

[Shadowmartyr]

Thanks for the information Alexires. How about this:

Put the APAN mixture in a plastic cup/container, then fill it half way up with water. But instead of putting something over it to cover the top why not just leave it open and put nothing there? Or I guess you could just wrap the plastic wrap around the entire thing, the stuff usually has a cling to it anyway, so I doubt you would even need a rubber band.

[Rbick]

Don't store APAN under water. Store AP under water until you are ready to dry it and mix with AN. If you stored APAN underwater, it would render the AN useless, and drying it to a point where it would be useable would be difficult if not impossible. Leaving AN "out to dry" in the air will not work, where as with AP, you can. Remember that AN is very hygroscopic (it absorbs water from the air).

If your AN is in the least bit wet, it will not work well, if at all. I have found the best way to dry it is in the oven. If you had already mixed AP in to the AN, you could not dry it in the oven, unless you wanted to kiss your oven bye bye. So in short, store your AP separately from the AN. Dry both of them separately, making sure to thuroughly dry your AN. Mix the two when you are ready to assemble the charge and use soon after. Long stored APAN will gain moisture quite quickly (AN is hygroscopic) and become useless.

[Uriel]

Hello, I was wondering what is the power of AP and APAN, my calculations give me around 4000 Joules per gram for TATP and between 5000 and 6000 for APAN but I am not sure.
You have an idea?
Thank you