Hydrogen Peroxide Explosives

Hi All,

i just found this forum today and I am very interested about this section

I didn't know that I can find a forum that discuss such stuff, it was my interest since i was young but couldn't find much info.

I used to play with Acetone Peroxide since it is very easy to prepare at home , I make very small quantity like 10 grams and play with it carefully since it is very sensitive.

Recently I found the attached document about "hydrogen peroxide explosives" and I am interested to try it with 100 grams quantities (time for big stuff).

I have some points that needs clarification and I hope you can help me about.


1- what is the sensitivity of hydroxide explosives (wood , AL, corn , .. + H202) ?

2- how many grams of Acetone Peroxide is needed to explode those stuffs?

3- what does he mean by "No. 6 blasting caps" ?

4-"76.8% hydrogen peroxide (90% ), and 23.2% wood pulp"
"the principal constituent of wood substance, is evidently stronger than nitroglycerin."

howcome ?!

5- the patent explain several derivatives from hydrogen peroxide but didn't compare them to each other or even mention the strength of each one in numbers ! do anybody have any idea about which mixture is the best?

6- I can find H202 with 50% concentration , how would i calculate the weight percentage for each mixture since he used 90% concentration

Attachment: US3047441.pdf (464kB)
This file has been downloaded 596 times

Quote: Originally posted by ecos

make very small quantity like 10 grams and play with it

WTF!

Hi Guys

it seems there is a miss understanding here

10 grams is the full quantity i build but i divide it into small amounts to play with i don't play directly with 10 grams as one unit.

BTW , any answers for my questions above ?

Quote:

BTW , any answers for my questions above ?

@DubaiAmateurRocketry , thanks for the advice.

@DrChemistRabbit, thanks for the reply , u surprise me !

How do you store acetone peroxide? Very simple: you don't! If you have to make it use it immediately, long storage and it crystalizes and becomes much more unstable.

also 78% H2O2 can probably be considered an explosive by itself...

Stay safe, and of all the beautiful aspects of chemistry, why explosives?

ecos... I can appreciate your enthusiasm for EMs but the way you are going about it is totally backwards and very dangerous. Many of us (I would like to believe the vast majority of us) are interested in the science and the scientific process first and foremost then marveling at the power second. THIS IS THE WRONG HOBBY TO PERSUE IF YOU LET YOUR AMBITION EXCEED YOUR SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE OF THIS CRAFT. That being said I would agree with other members and do a lot of research before you even think of synthesizing anything. The reason that some of the members seem dismissive is that the first post you listed made no god damn sense at all.
ie peroxide and many of the materials you listed are in compatible. Having a little knowledge and making large quantities of a very powerful highly unstable primary could very likely kill you and perpetuate the already bad stigma that this hobby is associated with. So PLEASE do some research read more threads and learn before you think of doing anything. So relax learn and above all else SAFETY FIRST. - Scientwisted

[Edited on 26-3-2014 by Scientwisted]

Quote: Originally posted by numos

How do you store acetone peroxide? Very simple: you don't! If you have to make it use it immediately, long storage and it crystalizes and becomes much more unstable. also 78% H2O2 can probably be considered an explosive by itself... Stay safe, and of all the beautiful aspects of chemistry, why explosives?

TATP is Storage Stable

For starters, I don't mean for this to be an endorsement for the use of acetone peroxide, there are much better primaries. I noticed the jar and realized how long it had been sitting there and thought it was interesting.

This has been stated already by Rosco and maybe others, but TATP is quite storage stable. It does have a high vapor pressure at ordinary temperatures and readily sublimes.

Here are a few pictures of 2-3 grams of acetone peroxide that was left under a bit of water in a pickle jar for 5 years or more. The jar has been sitting in the corner of a room at room temperature. It was not in direct sunlight, but it was not protected from normal room light either (not covered). It has become fairly coarse (about the same as a coarser grade of table sugar). About 0.6g of ETN hand pressed in a paper tube was initiated with 0.1g of a sample of the TATP which had been removed and let dry over night beforehand. This is a very crude test but it seems to posses the same qualities as freshly made TATP.

Interestingly, and thankfully, there didn't appear to be any TATP at the top of the jar, or around, or in the threads.




[Edited on 9-8-2015 by Hennig Brand]

I confirm that in hermetically sealed recipient CTAP sublimes in very beautifull tiny crystals and stores wel for years (more than one decade now)... I used 500ml PET soda bottle.

Here are some pictures of very large CTAP crystals I did obtain long ago by a special crystalization process from mother liquor and dense solvent (TCE: CHCl=CCl2).




[Edited on 10-8-2015 by PHILOU Zrealone]

They are indeed nice looking, reminds me of the breaking bad episode with the mercury fulminate, this would certainly qualify . Just curious, but how do they behave to flame? A friend of mine once lit one of these medium size crystals, he said it detonated with extreme vigor and lost his hearing at one side for a day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGN3SBVIjjA

"you got balls, I got to give you that"

[Edited on 10-8-2015 by nitro-genes]

One of the main problem with CTAP is its volatility/sublimability.

Usually it makes a fine dusty-floculent material with normal proces.
This is better for safety of handling since large crystals are usually more shock and friction sensitive, but while people try to push it down a detonator, they also induce friction and pressure to increase density.

If one let it sublimate in a closed recipient, he will get after a few monthes the kind of crystals Hennig Brand displays in his pictures, those can grow with years to a few mm (1-2 mm large to 5 mm long).
The tiny crystals sublimate faster than the larges ones (specific surface dependant) and there is a kind of "competition/struggle" ...the large crystals become larger and larger while tiny disappear...but the proces slows down with time because the specific surface is reduced with time while bigger crystals grows.

In my process, the flocculent CTAP with mother liquor is put in contact with the minimum amount of a dense volatile solvent (a halogenated hydrocarbon is good for this and especially TCE - trichlorethylen). It dissolves readily CTAP and extract it from the mother liquor (H2O, aceton, aqueous HCl, H2O2 (30%), CTAP).
TCE has the advantage of displaying a density of 1,46 g/ccm and of being slightly polarized...it is almost unsoluble in the mother liquor but stil a little.
PET bottles are resistant to TCE, but a tiny quantity may pass through by absorption and volatilisation...the bottle shrink a little and may deform a bit, while becoming milky (translucent by places).

So what happens?
1°)TCE is saturated with CTAP and mother liquor exhausted.
2°)TCE "evaporates" through bottle walls and through mother liquor (in the liquid phase and in the gaseous phase).
--> So do this in a hood or in outside shadow (not in sunshine!). Don't put this in a fridge or freezer, gaseous TCE will saturate all fatty material and plastic of your fridge/freezer...giving a bad sweet etheral taste to your butter for example even if there for a few hours!
3°)CTAP concentrâtes, and once TCE oversaturated,it starts to crystallize on the top of the TCE (density CTAP 1,2-1,3) but below the mother liquor (d= 1,0-1,1).
Mother liquor is in equilibrium for CTAP with the TCE phase so mother liquor feed slowly the tiny, then big crystals below it.
4°)Usually crystals are centered in the bottle (because of a kind of hyperconcentrated oily flat droplet meniscus- both concave and convex floating in the center at the interface) grow upward and pearce through the interfacial plane between the two solvents.
5°)The process can be accelerated if the bottle is cap untwisted to allow for faster evaporation of TCE (do this outside or in a good hood TCE is a known hepatotoxic).
6°)So you will get large crystals like mine, but often crystal twinning happens and one core plurigenic crystal flowers are formed. This may be bad news since on a microcrystalline level, it means disturbance and stress.
Those points display a higher energy level and the activation energy is then lower what means shock and friction sensitivity will be enhanced... thus beautifull but dangerous (like womens ).

ALWAYS STORE under demi water in soft airtight plastic container, in tiny amount, away from sunlight - heat and UV and treat with the higher respect and care of a sensitive primary ready to detonate in your hands.

Big crystals are very dense and very dry (inside the crystal latice) so indeed they do deflagro-detonate much easier and stronger than loose CTAP powder.

Friction between big crystals is also much harder than with amorphous CTAP...so don't shake to listen to the beautifull sound of the crystals hitting the wall of the recipient!

[Edited on 10-8-2015 by PHILOU Zrealone]