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View Full Version : Substituting nitrates in slurry explosives by potassium nitrate


saba
November 12th, 2003, 06:51 AM
Hi,
i want to ask you about nitrates used in watergel "slurry " explosives production,
we usually use (Ammonium nitrate AN, Sodium Nitrate SN, & Calcium Nitrate CN), i ask why are these nitrates specifically used , and if we can use Potassium Nitrate PN instead of any??.

Regards,
eng.saba

Rhadon
November 12th, 2003, 07:59 AM
Rules do also apply to chemical engineers which you claim to be...

I polished the thread up a bit so the topic can stay in case someone wants to discuss this.

Al Koholic
November 12th, 2003, 11:02 AM
I used to work with this stuff a lot. As far as I can remember only AN is usually used as the main oxidizer in the mixtures. I know we used sodium nitrate to increase the solubility of the AN and hence raise the density of the mix but it wasn't a whole lot of sodium nitrate...you only need a fraction of the total amount of AN. Also as far as I know, calcium or potassium nitrates aren't really used. Once I did wonder about using alkali metal nitrates as the base oxidizers in the mixtures and the people I was working with at the time thought it was definetly possible, you'd just have to change the mixtures % comp. I however am not so sure about this...I think that yes, perhaps a potassium nitrate derivative would detonate but it would most likely be a much poorer explosive in the application in which AN based slurries are curently used.

YayItGoBoom!
November 25th, 2003, 09:57 PM
Slurries, or Gelled Slurry Explosive (GSX) are often used in mining operations, as well as some outdated military applications (daisy cutter - clearing forests in Vietnam). Using NH4 ass the postive ion (I can't remember if this the anion or cation but its not important) is better than a metal ion because the products of ammonium nitrate breakdown are water, oxygen, and nitrogen. This is useful in mining/thermobaric because thats about 3 moles of gas per one mole of explosive. Volume can't quite keep up if it detonates fully, and the pressure increases within fractions of a second. With potassium or other metals, you are left with a nice group 1 salt that just...sits there.

bubbling_beaker
November 26th, 2003, 05:05 AM
This might be a bit off topic but since this is about water based gel explosives,how about adding copper powder to concentrated soln of AN and heat it or leave it for long enough for a good ammount of TACN to form and filter and discard the exess Cu , It seems that this should considerably sensitise these types of explosives, what do you think?

Blackhawk
November 26th, 2003, 05:47 AM
I think I read that the TACN to be an effective primary would have to be made anhydrously (Ie with pure enthanol) But seeing as you only want to sensetise the AN it may be helpfull. But if you washed away the excess Cu woudln't you also loose a lot of AN, unless you filtered the Cu out of the liquid and evapourated the water to get back the AN. But you would have to get the TACN out of the mix without getting all the Cu out at the same time...

Mumble
November 26th, 2003, 01:26 PM
I think he may have been talking about just leaving the TACN in the solution. When evaporated, at least some of it would be intimatly mixed with the AN, which is what I got as his purpose. Boiling down the solution, followed by rapid cooling would probably be the best bet for the most amount of mixed AN/TACN. As long as you don't heat to dryness there should be very little, if any risk of accidental explosion. All of the TACx salts are rendered useless by moisture.

The only thing that I'm not sure of is if the reaction between Copper and AN is an equilibrium. If so, when you remove the remaining copper, wouldn't that push the reaction back to the reactants side?