Military flash powder and a whole lot of water

[ENGINEERKILLER]

I usualy don't have a lot worth posting ,but I have a question people on this bb might be able to answer. Tommorow I have to dig up about 10,000 M21 HOFFMANS they are basicly target hit simulaters they have an electric squib connected into a vile with about an oz. of photo flash . Initialy we were gonna use hydraulic fluid to desensitize the flash as we went , but my commander is something of a wuss and decided not to because of possible EPA problems .So he got the fire department to bring out a water tanker . I did some a research on my own and I found out putting water on flash produces hydrogen gas ,then i was reading in one of the earlier threads that it was possibe to get spontaenous combustion from photo flash is the same true for military flash also . I know being a eod tech this may make me sound ignorant but I don't have a great background in chemistry . and i was wondering if someone could maybe point me in the generel direction for finding a good place to reference it .

[Anthony]

I beleive the problem occurs if there is metal poweder in the flash (which most compositions have), this reacts with the water creating heat and, IIRC hydrogen gas.

More of a problem with hygroscopic mixtures where a tiny about of absorbed moisture is enough to cause a reaction but the composition is still dry enough to ignite.

If the devices have been soaked (assumbing they're not water proof) then they should be incapable of combustion even if the squib were to go off.

[ENGINEERKILLER]

Thanks I will try to do a small sample this morning .If I don't reply in about 12 hours it means things wen't real bad .

[ENGINEERKILLER]

We have dug up about 500 so far, at one time there was the intent of burning all of these simulaters. The whole had been saturated with diesel fuel and partial burn was completed then for some reason it was extinguished .
That was about three years ago so now we got to dig every single one up and and blow them up.
I tried putting a small amount of water on the flash powdser and there was no visible reaction.I think this might be in part because the powder is soaked in diesel from three years ago .Its gray on the outside and in big chunks but when you brake them open it is still a white crystaline powder

[Anthony]

It's doubtful that you would have seen the reaction if it had occured as it is very slow.

Funny that you mention the flash as being a white powder as any flash with metal powders will be grey in colour. All I can think of is whistle mix which is like an organic flash (doesn't whistle unless compressed), not usually used for reports though. If it is whistle mix then it wouldn't have had the problem of reacting with the water.