Ammonium Chlorate

[VinniBOOM]

Since the forum was looking a bit boring and there was nothing very interesting on it for me, I thought I’d post a thread on the explosive have recently researched and I haven't found on this site, ammonium chlorate. I was wondering if, since the synthesis is quite straight forward – neutralise ammonium carbonate with chloric acid (chloric acid can be obtained through precipitation of sulphuric acid and barium chlorate and then filtering insoluble barium sulphate), has anyone had any experience making this explosive? I have heard however it is quite unstable (even when in a solution it can decompose when heated to around 102°C), so I am unsure if it has any practical use in explosives or pyrotechnics. And don't say do a search because I already have!

[Cobalt.45]

So very sorry that nothing on the Forum is up to your obviously superior standards.

Just as a thought- why the fuck don't YOU do your own god damn lab and tell US what you find.

[VinniBOOM]

Just asking. I may have worded it wrong. Sorry to anybody I've offended (except from Cobalt.45)

So you can Fuck off Cobalt.45

[SafetyLast]

woah there, hold it, this is a sacred place of learning, not some bar where you can just spout out profanity.

Do some research. Ammonium Chlorate is, as you said, a highly unstable compound, so why anybody would want to risk their life making such a sensitive explosive is beyond me.

You are unlikely to find knowledgeable chemists that would put themselves in danger by trying to synthesize it on anything more than the microscale. Read in the tannerite explosive target thread in the Other Explosives section if you are interested in using it as a binary. Other than that it really has no usage in the field of explosives.

[c.Tech]

VinniBOOM, you should do some serious research into the sensitivity of the chemicals you are talking about.

AFAIK ammonium chlorate and chloric acid spontaneously explosively decompose for no apparent reason and the reason sulfur and chlorate mixtures are so sensitive is because the formation of minute amounts of chloric acid.

You should reconsider your experiment before you get seriously injured or killed.

[a_bab]

Actually ammonium chlorate is likely to explode in solution, hence there is not too much research about it. It's just way too unstable. An exotic beast.

You may want to read this: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5480#pid62850

Unless you want to comit suicide, go for it <skull emoticon nkb was talking about>

[Cindor]

I wanna talk about an experiment I did couple of weeks ago:

I was playing with the classic NH4Cl NH4NO3 Zn mix (if gets wet it burst into flames).
I take a few mg and add more Zn and KClO3 to see what happens. I was looking for a explosion or even detonation when the water was added. But nothing happens, it doesn't even burns.

Like I appreciate my fingers I let it dry where it was, but like it didn't react I burn it: lot of smoke and a very good burning speed.

I did it 3 more times with the same results.
They pass a hammer test... and one of those was dried with a 100 W bubble, and no reaction.


So maybe there is a way to mix NH4NO3 and Chlorates...
I think the NH4Cl keeps the ClO3- and the NH4+ from reacting, or it gives stability to the NH4ClO3 or I don't know...
anybody ? ? ?

[NitroKaBooM]

Hi! I can say ammonium chlorate is widely used in pyrotechnics although I've never tried to make it. And in the past it was sometimes used as mining explosive. Indeed its sinthesys is enough simple to be worth of trying it and make some test. Hope this can help.

[Bert]

Hi! I can say ammonium chlorate is widely used in pyrotechnics although I've never tried to make it. And in the past it was sometimes used as mining explosive. Indeed its sinthesys is enough simple to be worth of trying it and make some test. Hope this can help.

Wrong on all counts. Do you perhaps mean ammonium PERchlorate.

[sprocket]

I did a search for ammonium chlorate on Gmelin. There are indeed not many recent papers on it; most are in the order of 100 years old. However there is one that might be of interest. It's only 20 years old and describes the preparation of solid ammonium chlorate from monoammonium phosphate and magnesium chlorate. The original paper is in russian, but there is a translated version of it. Unfortunately I can not get hold of this paper.

Citation:
Nabiev, M. N.; Tukhtaev, S.; Kucharov, Kh.; Askarova, M. K.; ZNOKAQ; Zh. Neorg. Khim.; Vol. 32; (1987) 1248 - 1250; Russian; RJICAQ; Russ. J. Inorg. Chem. (Transl. of Zh. Neorg. Khim.); Vol. 32; (1987) 758 - 760; English.

Attached is the full hitlist from Gmelin on ammonium chlorate. It contains some information about the compound, but a lot (64) of references.

[NitroKaBooM]

Bert: You're right! I apologize with VinniBOOM

[treekiller]

Shimizu devotes about three paragraphs to ammonium chlorate in his book.
One thing which stuck in my mind was an incident where a quantity of it was left in a test tube at room temperature and exploded within 48 hours.