John456
July 16th, 2001, 08:03 PM
To start off, ive been making PETN for a while. It is very easy to make in my experience (ive never had a failure) with 96%+ nitric acid. I am sure it is PETN because it detonates very powerfully and also makes a bang from a hammer blow. I wanted to see just how low a concentration i could make PETN with, so i tried a little experiment. I took 27mL of 70% nitric acid in a beaker and cooled it to 5*c. I then slowly added 6.25 grams of pentaerythritol. It reacted like normal (a little bit of fizz and the PE changing from powdery to flaky and then dissolving), and after the addition i removed it from the ice bath and left it for half an hour. When i came back it was a strong but not dark yellow and white crystals had precipitated. I added to it 200mL of distilled water and lo and behold more crystals precipitated to the bottom and would not dissolve! I filtered, washed and dried these and they crack from a hammer blow! The product was about 10g. Now, every set of instructions for making PETN have said not to use low concentration acids for nitrating this alchohol. I know a tri-nitro salt exists (petrin) but it requires dichloromethane and a weird synthesis process so i am pretty sure it couldnt be done with just less concentrated acid. So i am curious to know whether i made a mono- or di- nitro salt? I have not tried to detonate this yet but i thought i would ask if such a thing exists. I know it cant be pentaerythritol because it is soluable in water, and there is clearly a reaction taking place. This product is also soluable in acetone.