Sciencemadness Discussion Board

decomposition of NH4NO2

g3nius427 - 16-11-2004 at 19:39

anyone know the products in this decomposition

Marvin - 16-11-2004 at 19:42

Nitrogen and water. The stuff isnt stable normally, slowly decomposing, but can be kept in a high vaccuum for long periods.

Its also explosive incidentally.

g3nius427 - 16-11-2004 at 19:44

thanks so nitrogen and water are the only products?

Marvin - 16-11-2004 at 19:46

The only major products, trace amounts of other chemicals will occur from side reactions but its pointless to list every possibility.

g3nius427 - 16-11-2004 at 19:47

ok thank you

Southern_Trendkiller - 18-12-2004 at 15:05

Sorry about resurrecting an old thread, but what has been written here is not true. NH4NO3 is a stable compound, it doesn't decompose over time.
It does absorb water from the air, thus becoming desensitized.

But don't worry about it's sensitivity, this stuff is only gonna explode if you use some kind of strong blasting cap on it, NH4NO3 CANNOT incidentially explode.
The chance that NH4NO3 is going to spontanously explode equals the chance that a spoon full of tablesalt is going to explode spontanously.

Southern_Trendkiller

Dodoman - 18-12-2004 at 15:15

The compound refered to was NH4NO2 (ammonium nitrite). You are talking about NH4NO3 (ammonium nitrate).

Southern_Trendkiller - 18-12-2004 at 19:46

didn't see that, sorry. my fault :(

Nitrates and Nitrites

Joeychemist - 18-12-2004 at 20:57

Southern Trendkiller

I realize you did not notice, but let this be a lesson. you have to watch out for stuff like that, If you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing you could very easily kill your self by mistaking nitrites with nitrates. It’s very dangerous to mistake the two.

cyclonite4 - 18-12-2004 at 21:49

The decomposition of Ammonium Nitrite sounds like it could be uselful.

I assume it would decompose as such:
NH4NO2 ---heat---> 2H2O + N2

JohnWW - 19-12-2004 at 01:59

It would probably be highly exothermic, although not as much as the explosive decomposition of NH4NO3. Also, I think that minor byproducts may be NO, NO2, and N2O.

cyclonite4 - 19-12-2004 at 06:44

Exothermic enough to turn the water into steam? otherwise it would probably discontinue itself.