copper Acetylide

[iron raven]

hello,
i was readind sam baros power lab website, he stated that Acetyline gas with copper or silver nitrate would make exploisive salts. I have read about this also on rat_bastards site. My question is can copper nitrate be used in place of silver nitrate? The reason i ask is becoue i have no excess to silver nitrate. Is it posible to get it? if so how? i live in aus where it is hard to get chems. Would it be posible to get copper filings and place them in an elmyer falsk and pump acytline gas into it? thank you all very much for any info regarding this matter.

iron raven

[vulture]

Copper acetylide is said to be more sensitive than silveracetylide, apparently so sensitive that it is quite dangerous to handle.

Copper filings in an erlenmeyer flask won't work. Low surface area and usually this is done using copper salts.

[kingspaz]

copper salts do not form the double salt with the C2H2 as silver salts do. well, as far as i know.

have a look for some photography websites in aus. they often sell silver nitrate for old style photos. also you could just buy some bullion silver (about £6/oz) then dissolve it in nitric acid to make a silver nitrate solution.

whilst on sam barros page you will have also noticed the equations showing the reaction of a copper salt with C2H2. this shows how it is done.

[blindreeper]

Excuse my ignorance kingspax but what is bullion silver? At that price I'd be very interested indeed. And one thing iron raven things are not hard to get you just have to know where to look!;)

[0EZ0]

Bullion = Cast bar or block, usually stamped with the emblem of the company and percentage of purity. Think of it as bars of stock metal.

Current AU market prices (26-Jun-03) for Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium found below.

http://www.ausbullion.com/price.html

[urbana]

In order to obtain copper acetylide you must have a cuprous salt. As long as I know cupric salts will not work.
The best way to do that:
1. Boil a solution of copper sulphate with dextrose and NaOH. Copper sulphate will have a methatesis with soda and produce Copper hidroxide. during formation dextrose will make the reduction to cuprous hidroxide.
2. separate the cuprous hidroxide and rect it with hidrochloric acid, yuou will obtain cuprous chloride.
3. Trough the solution of cuprous chloride you pass a acetylene gas.
4. Cuprous acetylide will precipitate.

[inFinie]

C2H2 + CuCl ---> Cu2C2 + 2HCl in presence of NH3
This is a test for acetylene, copper acetylide is reddish, silver acetylide is grayish precipitate.
I think NO3's won't work. Because HNO3 is powerful to decompose organic things.
One question: Is copper or silver acetylide organometallic or inorganic?
Definition of organic is having at least one C-H bond i think. Then its not or?
Is acetylide same as carbide?

[rooster]

I have access to Sodium acetylide. Is it possible to make a solution out of this and a solution of e.g. copper nitrate or sulphate, mix the two and get copper acetylide? If so, will it also work for producing other acetylides?

[Bo bo]

What i have read on the subject of copper acetylide is that it is made made from an ammonical solution of cuprous chloride. Isnt cuprous chloride tricky to produce?

[MBialy]

Like you know we have copper(I) acetylide (Cu2C2, brownish-red powder) and copper(II) acetylide (CuC2, black or brownish powder)
Depends which one we won’t to make we bubble acetylene through ammonium solution of copper(I) chloride or copper(II) chloride.
CuC2 is more sensitive to friction and strike then Cu2C2, it explodes at 50-70*C.

Silver(I) acetylide (Ag2C2) is a white powder and it produce is analogous to Cu2C2 – we use AgCl.
But when we will use an aqueous solution of silver nitrate we end up with AgNO3xAg2C2 or Ag2C2x6AgNO3 which is less sensitive then Ag2C2

But what happens when we will use Cu(NO3)2 or CuNO3 dissolved in water or ammonia?
In the first case we will properly get Cu2C2 or CuC2 . In the second case – CuNO3XCu2C2 or Cu(NO3)2XCuC2 ??

[Bo bo]

Just a thought, surely making any explosive with a silver compound is a tad expensive. I remember my chemistry master back at school collecting our silver nitate solutions after an experiment, instead of us tipping it down the sink!

[kingspaz]

Bo bo, in my opinion its worth the money. you don't need much primary so if you spend £20 on silver nitrate then its not like you have to do it again for atleast a year unless you set off more than a charge every two weeks.

[Nevermore]

i got a big coin that looks like silver even if i am not sure it is, is there any test to check if is really Ag before i dump in the HNO3?
I washed with HNO3, it became white then darkened when dry, looks like the normal behavious of AgNO3 but, i can't be sure, so i would appreciate any help of a Silver test with common house chemicals..

[Polverone]

Dissolve a few filings from the coin in HNO3. Evaporate the HNO3 (gently) to dryness. Dissolve the colorless solid left in water, and add a few drops of hydrochloric acid or sodium chloride solution. There should be a white precipitate if it's silver. Or try putting a bit of sulfur on the surface of the coin and gently warming it. There should be a black stain where the sulfur was if it's silver.

[Nevermore]

Thanks, i've thought about S but i do not have available at now, so i was trying to use some egg yolk...that is the first thing containing it that comes into my mind, if there is someone that knows a better way i would rather try instead of crushing an egg!
Thanks

[knowledgehungry]

If you really have a silver coin it is most likely valuable, as all silver coins are due to them not being made since >1964. Sorry, I just dont want valuable coinage destroyed.

[Nevermore]

it is not really a coin, is like a medal or something, in fact, is too big to be a coin, also doesn't have a back, on the back there is written something in french. in my opinion is not valuable at all, but i still doubt it is silver, i will try to buy some silver on monday.

[CrazyUchemist]

MBialy:
You are wrong in assuming that Silver Nitrate + acetylene = AgNO3xAg2C2

2AgNO3 + C2H2 -----> 2AgC + 2HNO3

I ran an IR of the product (I actually made some for genuine scientific purposes, not to blow up) and there are no N-O stretches. Not only that, but your imperical formula is totally out of wack. The way you have it written, the silver is in a 3+ oxidation state...yea right.

And anyone that would make CuC2 is just retarded and deserves getting their hand blown off. It's like holding 5 grams of dry ammonia iodide.

~The Crazy Chemist

[Wydarr]

Originally posted by MBialy

Silver(I) acetylide (Ag2C2) is a white powder and it produce is analogous to Cu2C2 – we use AgCl.
But when we will use an aqueous solution of silver nitrate we end up with AgNO3xAg2C2 or Ag2C2x6AgNO3 which is less sensitive then Ag2C2


I would like to know what do you found your statement on, because I find it pretty unlikely to be true. First of all silver nitrate is soluble, while silver acetilyde isn't. Second... in the second formula the explosive would be heavily impurified with the silver nitrate. I have been making silver acetilyde using the aforementioned method (acetylene in AgNO3(aq)) and it packs a powerful punch. I have never used anything more than 1 gr of this to detonate the most powerful charges I have ever made (top of the line was something close to 600 grams of AN based explosive).

[vulture]

The way you have it written, the silver is in a 3+ oxidation state...yea right.

I don't see where you get this oxidation state. He's talking about double salts, you can vary the ratio without changing oxidation states (something you should know as a chemist).

Furthermore, you've got your formula wrong yourself.

AgC isn't silveracetylide. There is no triple bond between carbon atoms in it. The acetylide ion, C₂^2- has a charge of -2 and therefore has to combine with 2Ag ions, forming Ag2C2.

Ag--C*C--Ag

Where * = triple bond.

[CrazyUchemist]

I mispoke on the AgNO3xAg2C2...my appologies. But I'm won't retract my statement that this double salt doesn't exsist.


And if you wanna name silver acetylide Ag2C2 versus AgC...we're just talking semantics now. It's like calling Phosphorus pentoxide P2O5...when it's not really that, it's really P4O10, but the imperical formula is P2O5.

So no, I don't have my "formula" wrong.

[rooster]

Is it possible to make heavy-metal acetylides with sodium acetylide? I have access to this, but will the sodium acetylide react with water, adn if not, will it at all dissolve? I can't find any MSDS on the product.

Also, if a solution of this in some solvent, was added to a silver nitrate solution, would it produce tho double salt, or just the acetylide?

[vulture]

You might want to read this:
http://www.powerlabs.org/chemlabs/acetylide.htm

And if you wanna name silver acetylide Ag2C2 versus AgC...we're just talking semantics now. It's like calling Phosphorus pentoxide P2O5...when it's not really that, it's really P4O10, but the imperical formula is P2O5.


You're comparing oranges with apples here. P2O5 is possible theoretically if you look at the oxidation states, but AgC is not! And I thought you emphasized on oxidation states....:rolleyes:

What I find even more surprising is that you, claiming to be an experienced chemist, are not well informed about a component you made. Double salts are a well known phenomenon in chemistry.

[CrazyUchemist]

Bash me all you want...but at the end of the day, who get's published for research and who goes to jail for illegally making explosives?

[me234]

Actually, the double salts gets published, they are a widely known and accepted phenomena, many scentifically minded and scientifically written books have been published containing information on these salts, if I have time later I will go to the library and jot down some names and post them here for you to peruse at your own leisure. Sorry man, vulture is right on this one.

[CrazyUchemist]

.

[Ollie Snowie]

Hey, who said we were making explosives? We just DREAM about them :).
What was that last post anyway? A FULL STOP! Whatever next?!?
CrazyUchemist - Could you please tell us a bit more about what research you are doing? Start a thread in the Water Cooler perhaps, or do you think that giving away your research project is making you too traceable? Anyway, if so, what have you got to hide, if you're not "making explosives"? Do you think you will become rich and famous from it so you won't give anything away? I don't think so...
Also, I would (and probably many other people reading this) actually like to try making copper carbide. I have a chemistry book that actually recommends doing it as a practical, but not to let it dry out. This was a SCHOOL chemistry book, and who would be doing such dangerous experiments anyway, let alone with kiddies standing around watching. Do not make up these petty "rules of being" like "you are retarded if you...". You have succeded in pissing off more than one person here...
Also, are you thinking that carbon does not always have a valency of 4 (from CO) and therefore thinking that AgC does exist. Valency of 1, for carbon, maybe not. But silver forms AgO, so it can have a valency of 2. I'm not entirely sure that he is wrong (but I know that the others are right about Ag2C2)(perhaps these wierd oxidation states are the cause of its extreme instability) but compare someone who has stayed a long time here and appers to know quite a bit about chemistry with someone who thinks that ammonia (ammoniUM) iodide is explosive (or perhaps he meant NI3).
The only thing I can think of that could justify this mistake is that he doesn't know much English, but it appears that this is not the case.
Goodbye for now to the man who thinks that H2O2 and OH are the same thing.
Anyway, back on topic now.

[vulture]

AgC is not an acetylide because there is no acetylide bond! An acetylide requires 2 carbon atoms bonded together by a triple bond!

Valency is not the holy cow of chemistry, quite the contrary. You have to look at orbitals and energy favorable bonds. For example, carbon and silver couldn't even form a double bond, because the silver atom is too large to form stable pi bonds.

[GreenCoat]

Cuprous Acetylide (Cu2C2) was used in the past as a coating on the bridgwires for commercial compound electric detonators to increase their reliability. It has probably never been used in military detonators. It is *not* an effective initiating agent, and cannot be used alone as such. It is produced as a red precipitate by bubbling acetylene gas through an ammoniacal cuprous chloride solution, the latter produced when an ammonium hydroxide solution is added to a suspension of the insoluble cuprous chloride in water. The cuprous chloride is white, and upon adding the ammonium hydroxide, it dissolves because of the formation of the soluble and colorless Cu[(NH3)2]+Cl-. However, the solution will quickly turn a beautiful deep blue in the presence of air/oxygen because of oxidation of some of the complex to [Cu[(NH3)4]++. There are many methods of producing cuprous chloride, but an efficient one can be found at either one of the following references: Keller, Wycoff, Inorganic Synthesis, 2, 1 (1946), or Glemser, Sauer in Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry, vol. 2, G. Brauer, Ed. (Academic Press, New York, 2nd ed., 1965) p. 1005. The cuprouse acetylide (Cu2C2) separates out as the monohydrate which yields the anhydrous salt on drying over CaCl2.

The silver acetylide/nitrate double salt (Ag2C2-AgNO3) is produced, according to A. Stettbacher, Nitrocellulose II, 227-229, 1940, as a white precipitate by bubbling acetylene gas through the following solution: 10g of AgNO3 in 40ml of water and 6ml of HNO3 (sp.gr. 1.4 or the 70% acid). The solution is brought to a boil before the acetylene gas is passed through. (Obviously, turn off all heat sources before turning on the acetylene!). The solution is allowed to cool and filtered. The double salt is a more powerful initiator than Ag2C2 alone, and has the advantage of being less sensitive to shock/friction. The double salt is also far less sensitive than cuprous acetylide.

__________________________________________________ ___________
Quote from rooster:
I have access to Sodium acetylide. Is it possible to make a solution out of this and a solution of e.g. copper nitrate or sulphate, mix the two and get copper acetylide? If so, will it also work for producing other acetylides?
__________________________________________________ ___________

No. Sodium acetylide decomposes on contact with water to form a solution of sodium hydroxide and acetylene gas. You would precipitate mostly cupric hydroxide, maybe a little cupric acetylide, which is not the desired product. You *can* use it as a convenient source for acetylene gas, but sodium acetylide should be added in very small quantities to water as the reaction is quite vigorous.

__________________________________________________ ____________
Quote from Bo bo:
What i have read on the subject of copper acetylide is that it is made made from an ammonical solution of cuprous chloride. Isnt cuprous chloride tricky to produce?
__________________________________________________ ____________

Yes. The tricky part is to use the solution as soon as possible as it will quickly absorb oxygen and be oxidized to cupric chloride.

__________________________________________________ ____________
Quote from urbana:
In order to obtain copper acetylide you must have a cuprous salt. As long as I know cupric salts will not work.
The best way to do that:
1. Boil a solution of copper sulphate with dextrose and NaOH. Copper sulphate will have a methatesis with soda and produce Copper hidroxide. during formation dextrose will make the reduction to cuprous hidroxide.
2. separate the cuprous hidroxide and rect it with hidrochloric acid, yuou will obtain cuprous chloride.
3. Trough the solution of cuprous chloride you pass a acetylene gas.
4. Cuprous acetylide will precipitate.
__________________________________________________ ____________

Another good synthesis for the cuprous salt, but as MBialy points out: "CuC2 is more sensitive to friction and strike then Cu2C2, it explodes at 50-70*C". The cuprous salt will explode at 120*C. So cupric acetylide *can* be made but is more friction and temperature sensitive.

blindreeper: Silver bullion comes in the form of small bars or coins as others pointed out. You can frequently find it in coin shops and antique stores. I would try there first before buying it online or through a bank. Make sure it says "99.9% Pure" on it. You wouldn't want to use a silver 'coin' that contains, for instance, 90% silver and 10% copper, especially if you are trying to make Ag2C2-AgNO3.

[ProdigyChild]

I tried to prepare some Cu2C2 last night and it was a nightmare!

I converted CuCl2 solution left from etching copper to CuCl by adding aluminium powder to it (voilent reaction - careful!) until the green color disappeared. Adding further aluminum at that stage still reacts violently, precipating copper.
So I ended up with a hot solution of CuCl in water with impurities consisting of HCl AlCl3 and a copper precipate.
Decanted the clear solution and cooled it. The white CuCl precipated rather quickly. I washed it with destilled water.
The CuCl is fairly unstable in the presence of air. Within a few minutes it starts to turn green or brown (Cu2+).

From some waste solutions (containing much Cu2+ in addition to Cu+) I tried to produce CuC2 or Cu2C2 by simply bubbling C2H2 (welding gas) through it. The solution immediately turns dark (blue/black/violet-mix), no chance to look through.

=> even without the presence of NH3 you get a precipate.
However, after filtering and drying, this showed no explosive properties at all. No violent decomposition either in conc. HCl nor in NH4OH. Shouldn't the actetylide decompose in strong acid? I suppose I got Cu2O/CuO mix. Or is even a double salt conceivable like Cu2C2*CuCl, that precipates by bubbling C2H2 in, but is not explosive at all??

Next try!
I put some quite pure CuCl in destilled water. After adding a bit of NH4OH the white crystals turned yellow! Haven't read this before. Any ideas? Adding HCl turns them white again.
OK, I ignored the color and added just more NH4OH (10% solution). After much stirring and adding quite a lot ammonia the crystals dissolved.
Bubbling C2H2 through it darkened the solution immediately, however, color was now red-brown, the precipate is also brown. Reminds somehow to rust or Fe3(OH)3.
Bad property of this stuff was its spongyness. After filtering I had a water-rich brown mud. After drying in the oven, only few residue was left.
That brown powder has explosive properties.

I made several runs and each run produced a product different in color and different in explosive properties. Sometimes it explodes with a flash and leaves heavy carbon traces, sometimes it's only sparkling. Heating up improves sensitivity. In the oven, I'm sure it would do one single BANG.
Filling a bridgewire straw detonator (3mm diameter) gave definitely a hard bang and an awful mess of carbon powder :D

The electric conductivity of my product is zero (in excess of M-Ohms for a 1 cubic mm crystal). I had expected CuxC2 to be conductive. My dream of an easy initializer without a bridge wire is gone now :(

All in all, I don't like the Copper Acetylide so far.
- difficult to produce, hard to dry
- unreliable to produce (different color, different sensitivity)
- not a fine powder but nasty lumps of different size, hard and dangerous to grind.
- lazy at room temperature,, could be more sensitive to fire.

Anyone had similar experiences?

[freaky_frank]

I tried to make it once with copper nitrate solution, and there didn't form any copper acetylide since it all dissolves immediately back into solution

[ProdigyChild]

I tried to use the Cu2C2 I produced recently for detonators. Rather disappointing. At least without a rigid casing (l like theses McDonald straws :D ) it's quite unuseable. I did not manage to set off MHN with it, not even when mixed with the Cu2C2.
I don't want any metal pieces in my ass, so I WILL NOT try metal casings.

Cu2C2 is not worth the effort in my opinion. I stop producing this and for now stick to AP as initializer.

[Dr_Pind]

I have tried making Cu2C2 twice. The first time i made the CuCl by heating CuCl2 with copper wire in an acidic solution. When no more copper dissolved I poured the solution into cold water. This yielded white CuCl. Unfortunately the CuCl was quickly oxidized by the air, giving it a brownish colour on the surface. I mixed the CuCl with a strong ammonia solution and bubbled acethylene through it. This resulted in the formation of a very dark brown precipitate of Cu2C2. Unfortunately the experiment was conducted on a very small scale, and almost didn't yield any product. Since the whole procedure was rather difficult and time consuming, I abbandoned Cu2C2.
But then about ½ year ago I decided to try again. this time I used copper powder instead of wire in the production of the CuCl. I got this powder by putting steel woll into a saturated solution of CuSO4. This time the procedure went a lot smoother than the last time, since I used larger ammounts of chemicals, and because I managed to protect the CuCl from the oxygen in the atmosphere. The finished product was rather easy to ingite by impact and by naked flame. It didn't show much sensitivity to friction however. I tried confining it in a cardboard tube and igniting it with a fuse. It didn't even sound like black powder when fired. It simply shot out the plugs used for confining the ends of the tube giving a pathetic "POP". I really can't find any use of this material, and the fact that it is very hard and time consuming to produce removes it completely from my list of usefull explosives. The only use for it would be in percussion caps or similar igniters.

[Bugger]

Cuprous acetylide, being a covalent compound of a triply-bonded group, would be expected to be explosive by analogy with the heavy-metal covalent azides (N3-) of metals like Cu, Pb, Ag, Hg, although less so. The carbon content would make acetylides more inflammable, requiring the presence of air, rather than explosive in the absence of air, unlike azides.

Bugger.

[TheBear]

Could addition of an oxidizer improve it's properties?
chlorates and perchlorates aren't compatible, but what about nitrates?

[Nerro]

acetylide is extremely instable so I don't think it would be compatible with any oxiders.

[ProdigyChild]

Improving properties by adding oxidizers? No. The only property one expects from a primary explosive is ease of detonation. If that stuff is too lazy to DETONATE you can't improve that by adding an oxidizer.

Powder mixtures never detonate, do they?

[TheBear]

Only if the covalent bonds in the oxidizer are broken by the shockwave I guess. (This is the old "does flashpowder detonate" topic). Don't want to start another one of those. I was merely thinking that addition of an oxidizer would insure easier DTD. However the process of adding the oxidizer would probably be very dangerous.

[Marvin]

You are correct about the improvement and nitrate will work if finely divided, consider the differences between silver acetylide, and the acetylide/nitrate double salt, or the mixtures of fulminate and chlorate that used to be used in detonators. For those people that dont think nitrate mixtures can detonate look at yellow powder (more of a solid solution), or Rashig's white blasting powder or nanosilicon/nitrate.

As has been pointed out, the incorperation is by far best done chemically though and where double salts dont exist I suspect the improvement in peformance is vastly outweighed by the increase in risk. For anyone outside the explosives manufacturing industry that is.