Copper Fulminate

[xeophist]

Hello,

I've run out of mercury today, so my PETN detonations came to an end. It will take three weeks until a new shipment of mercury arrives, so I would like to substitute it with something else. I never make explosives peroxides like AP, because it is unstable and carries a flag of wannabe bomber junkies and because it is overly lame. I just found some fine copper powder among my reagents and would like to ask any inmates if Copper Fulminate is worth making, if it can effectively substitute mercury fulminate? I have 250g of it, and would be really happy if it had the same initiating qualities as mercury fulminate.

As to the thread where people were arguing whether BP or Flash can initiate secondarys, I've tried to detonate PETN today with a Titan class (it is big and the most powerful I could get) firecracker two times, with no success. What a waste of beautiful PETN.

Xeo

[Marvin]

Conventional wisdom says you have to make copper fulminate from the mercury or the silver salt.

There is supposidly a method in the preperatory manual of explosives, but noone seems to have tried it and its validity is in doubt. Certainly bits of the synth do not make sense. When this book ends up available on the FTP we'll give it a second look. I wouldnt pay for a book that sounds like the author hasnt actually tried all the experiments.

This should have been posted in other, and if youd have searched you might have found the other post assuming it wasnt lost in the iDefence incident.

I would be inclined to try a different primary.

[xeophist]

You were correct that there was a thread where someone stated that mercury fulminate has to be used in the making of copper fulminate, so that fact actually disqualifies CF. One way would be lead picrate, as I have some picric acid available. Do you think lead picrate would do?

[kingspaz]

Why not use AP or HMTD for a couple of weeks? Lets not discuss lead picrate here. I'm sure there must be a topic about it.

Does anybody know any specific properties of Cu-fulminate? If its no better than Hg-fulminate then theres no point in making it other than curiosity.

If it has a much lower density than Hg-fulminate then it may have uses in avoiding detection...

[JimmyJones]

Copper Fulminate

It grey ppt with greenish tinge; expl violently on heating to ca 205 or on impact; stable in the dry state but oxidizes in presence of moisture; insol in w; heat of expln 508cal/g; less sensitive to impact than Hg or cd fulminates. Was prepared by Wohler & Martin by shaking Ag fulminate with Cu amalgam in water, in hydrogen atm. It was used in detonators for gaseous coal mines.

[delta_acrylate]

Xeo,

Have you tried Copper (II) Azide?

According to the Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry Vol. 1 page 1022, it is 6 times stronger then Pb(N3)2 (Lead Azide) and 450 times stronger then mercury fulminate when used as a detonator.
It is harmless when moist, quite sensitive to rubbing when dry or moistened with ether. Explodes when placed in a flame.

A solution of 5 grams of copper nitrate (Cu(NO3)2*3H2O) in 200 ml of water is treated in the cold with 50 ml of a solution containing 2.5 grams of sodium azide. The resultant precipitate is suction filtered and washed several times with cold water. The wet product is left to stand 24 hrs in 50 ml solution of a 2% hydrazoic acid (CAREFULL POISON!!!), suction filtered and washed with alcohol, and dried at room temperature.

Properties:
Black-brown powder, opaque crystal needles. Very sparingly soluble in water and organic solvnets. Readily soluble in acids, and ammonia.

[xeophist]

I haven't tried copper azide yet, but I've read that some ridiculous (0,004g) amounts can set off PETN. This fact makes this primary attractive, thanks for the advice. I'll look around for sodium azide and hydrazoic acid as I do not have these among my reagents.

[The_Rsert]

Maybe you can make Copper Fulminate with Sodium Fulminate and Copper Chloride.
2NaCNO + CuCl2 --> Cu(CNO)2 + 2 NaCl
But I don't know how to get/make some NaCNO.
Maybe use NaOH or NaNO3 instead of HG in the Mercury Fulminate synth.

[A.Scriabin]

This is my video that shows copper fulminate : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_osT-qmKcb8

[Acrolein]

Could you please specify on the synthesis of hydrazoic acid, because I searched the forum for a half hour and Google for three. Just adding water to sodium azide makes me skeptical...

[in_flames]

According to wikipedia in the hydrazoic acid article:

"The acid is formed by acidification of an azide salt, usually sodium azide, or by adding water (which has a lower yield).

The pure acid may be obtained by fractional distillation as a colorless liquid of very unpleasant smell, boiling at ~30 C., and extremely explosive."

I hope this helps.