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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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You know, I have highly eclectic chemical interests and have been at this for a long time - like 45 years. And very rarely have I ever felt deprived
because I didn't have ammonium nitrate.
Now don't get me wrong. I fully agree that any of us who wants AN ought to be able to have it, and I am the last person to say nay to that. But apart
from my abortive foray into blueing salts 20 years ago I have never felt the need to have a 25 Kg sack of AN sitting around.
The only chemical application that ever came up for me was the old route to guanidine nitrate, and that route is really passe, so no one needs AN for
that. Axt has fully demonstrated the alternative OTC route that is safer and there is also commercially available guanidine carbonate.
So I would like to know just what other applications you guys have for AN that are so compelling? List them here please.
Furthermore it seems to me that evil_lurker is right and AN's unavailability is a regional issue, not a national one (for now anyway) so you can buy
it and transport it if you want it bad enough.
If you just need a few Kg then those $4 a lb prices look very friendly to me. Everything and I mean everything I buy is imported, and costs me an arm
and a leg.
So what I am hearing is a lot of whingeing about how you can't get it LOCALLY and in 50 lb SACKS but you can still get it for $4/lb to $6 a lb and you
can still get 50 lb sacks in other parts of the country and so one etc.
Lots of things I can't get alt all at any price and I must MAKE often at considerable trouble and expense.
Anyway back to basics. What do you need the AN for? Because as I said: I have rarely ever felt the slightest need for it. So I am very curious.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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kilowatt
Hazard to Others
Posts: 322
Registered: 11-10-2007
Location: Montana
Member Is Offline
Mood: nitric
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Are you kidding? AN is the one of the best sources of bulk ammonium and nitrate ions, two of the most versatile ions there are. I have used it as a
ready source for making strong ammonia, metal nitrates (and thus nitric acid) and nitrous oxide, as a convenient cooling solution, and as a powerful
oxidizer for solid rocket propellants. Those are just a few uses I have found in my relatively short time in chemistry, and was able think of right
off the top of my head. Just because you don't use a particular chemical much doesn't mean it is useless for other chemists.
[Edited on 15-4-2008 by kilowatt]
The mind cannot decide the truth; it can only find the truth.
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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No I am not kidding. Because those metal nitrates you are talking about (Na, K, Ca) are generally a lot easier to acquire than AN. As Polverone
pointed out you don't make HNO3 directly from AN anyway. And not everyoen has to make their own nitric acid, after all.
MJP the thread author is not to my knowledge into rocketry. Cooling baths? Yes but there are alternatives for those, plenty of them.
So how much N2O are we talking about?
In all my decades of chemistry there are only half a dozen or less chemicals I have bought in bulk.
Citric acid
Diammonium phosphate
Magnesium sulfate
TCCA
Dextrose
Bentonite
Diatomaceous earth
Most of those pertinent to fermentation of ethanol which I no longer do.
Kilowatt, I did not say I think you shouldn't have it or be able to get it. I am just wondering why you want to. Is this hoarding against a perceived
absence of it from the market?
[Edited on 15-4-2008 by Sauron]
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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kilowatt
Hazard to Others
Posts: 322
Registered: 11-10-2007
Location: Montana
Member Is Offline
Mood: nitric
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For many of us who have trouble buying the chemicals that are easily derived from AN, AN is the best way to get them. Buying nitric acid or metal
nitrates is not as easy for some of us as it is for you, myself included, not to mention they are much more expensive in my experience. That's really
what it comes down to for me. Cost really is the biggest factor for some of us. And yes, it is a good idea to stock up on chemicals that may soon be
more unavailable to the public. That way, when you can't get them anymore, you are still able to use them for some time.
Utilizing AN as a nitrous oxide source (for running a nitriding burner, chemical syntheses, etc) is, for me, a heck of a lot cheaper than leasing a
cylinder of the gas and getting it refilled, too. This is only the case for small amounts as the decomposition becomes too dangerously exothermic in
bulk quantity, but I can't see myself ever needing a large flow of nitrous oxide. We all have our different chemicals that are easier or harder to
get depending on region and circumstances. We have covered AN and many alternatives, which is good.
[Edited on 15-4-2008 by kilowatt]
The mind cannot decide the truth; it can only find the truth.
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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The third source for N2O is the small capsules/cartridges sold in restaurant supply shops for whipped cream dispensers. These look just like CO2
cartridges for BB and pellet pistols. No drayage on these, they are disposable, and no hazard from heating the AN to dryness.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Suspicious
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Oh yeah, I remember buying a bunch of those at a head shop when I was younger. They sell these things to open them then you put it in a balloon and
breathe it in. It was fun but not enough for me to do it more than once. The "hangover" was almost as bad as from alchohol. Extreme fatique.
Profuse sweating. Dysphoria.
Not something I would reccomend doing on more than an occasional basis.
I've often pondered if N2O could be useful in the lab since it's OTC and readily available but I haven't found anything extremely interesting to do
with it.
Anyway, I don't really need a 50lb bag of ammonium nitrate, I really don't NEED any. I just thought that maybe one day I will find it interesting and
will not be able to obtain it. So, I thought I might as well get as much as I can right now if it's cheap enough. Yes, I can make it but it would
just be easier to buy it now rather than make it later.
Only thing I find very interesting about it is it's explosive properties. I'm not entirely disinterested in energetics.
Really, I have to admit it has a certain allure because of it's status as a big "no, no". Maybe subconsciously I want it just because of it's bad
press. You know, when you tell a kid that something is bad and they do it just because they know it's bad.
That's why I want to find it cheap (or an easy way to make it). Because I don't really need it.
Was that confusing and complex enough for you? Haha!
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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It's a kind of status-symbol for mad scientists!
P
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dshively2
Harmless
Posts: 1
Registered: 26-1-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Ammoniun Nitrate
If you go to www.lastmanstandingtargets.com and use the coupon code NHbulkDiscount you can get 50lbs of ammonium nitrate for 109.99!
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