nitro-genes
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Guess the energetic material!
As a side track to a different project, a very small amount of a surprisingly obscure energetic compound was made, thats has been suggested as a
potential primary explosive. Can anyone guess which compound this is?! 
It is reasonably soluble in boiling water and upon cooling crystallized as beautiful hemispherically shaped crystal aggregates (photo 1). After
isolation and drying overnight at room temperature, the bright yellow compound consisted of delicate and almost hair-like crystals, that clumped
together and had a feel like felt (photo 2). The bright yellow compound when touched by flame or a glowing splint crackles and puffs energetically,
but never deflagerates as a whole. When dried at about 90 deg. C. over a hot water bath, the compound slowly went from bright yellow to a bright
orange, without obvious decomposition (Photo 3, left = before heating, right after 30 min at 90 deg. C.). A few mg's of the orange compound when
touched by a glowing splint deflagerates quickly with a white flame, producing some black smoke and leaves black stains on the paper (video 1).
Quantities larger than a milligram, When heated by flame on aluminium foil, detonate at about 280-290 deg. C., displaying low brisance (Video 2).
Attachment: 5 mg - glowing splint.avi (1.3MB)
This file has been downloaded 595 times
Attachment: 1 mg - slow heating foil.avi (700kB)
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ninhydric1
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Is it some form of peroxide? A random guess here, I have no idea.
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
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DubaiAmateurRocketry
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A Tetrazole salt?
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nitro-genes
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@ ninhydric1: No peroxide group
@ Dubai: No tetrazole ring present
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DubaiAmateurRocketry
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Hmm... "obscure energetic" any hints? say 1 of the starting chemicals haha
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DubaiAmateurRocketry
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It does look like fox-7, Hmm... "obscure energetic" any hints? say 1 of the starting chemicals haha
[Edited on 23-11-2018 by DubaiAmateurRocketry]
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nitro-genes
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@Dubai, no Fox7
"Suprisingly obscure" could also suggest an absence from literature even though well known starting materials were utilized. The high explosion temp and colours are a giveaway.
Yep...thats it! 
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DubaiAmateurRocketry
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is FOX-7 usually orange? that threw me off.
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greenlight
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@ Dubai, FOX-7 is bright yellow in colour.
Is it some sort of picrate salt nitro-genes?
I have made a few picrates before and they possess most of the properties you describe, especially the black stain after deflagration.
The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one.
George Wald
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DubaiAmateurRocketry
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right, bright orange, thats what i thought, that color looked a bit more dark so it threw me off my guess hehe
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hissingnoise
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Disulphur tetranitride is what it looks like...
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Tdep
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S4N4, surely not...
has to be an organic molecule, has to be nitrated... I assume at that colour it is a nitroaromatic... but it's not that yellow so there has to be
something different... DDNP is my guess
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nitro-genes
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@ Dubai: One of the starting materials for the bright yellow compound was water, if I'm not mistaken it is lost on drying to the orange compound
@ Hissingnoise: Would be nice to make some time, but it contains no sulfur
@ Greenlight and Tdep: Getting close! It contains a nitroaromatic indeed, though no diazo group is present
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phlogiston
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Is it a styphnate?
Lead styphnate can have different shades of yellow/orange. Color shown seems compatible.
Explosion temperature is in approximately the right range.
Judging from youtube videos, it does leave a black residue.
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hissingnoise
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Well, S2N4 to be precise ─ it was considered for use in detonators but it was found to be inferior to MF as an initiator...
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hissingnoise
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Blast, 'thought I had it ─ the carbon residue should have told me otherwise...
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hissingnoise
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Styphnic acid ─ hexanitroazobenzene ─ trinitrocresol?
I'm stumped!
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Tdep
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Hexanitrostilbine?
Edit: of course not. All I was thinking was colour, not about the sensitivity and water solubility. I can't think. Umm Fox-6
[Edited on 23-11-2018 by Tdep]
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Culpable Cuprate
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K/Na hexanitrocobaltate or K/Na cobaltinitrite?
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greenlight
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My other guess would be a styphnate salt..
I was going to say tetryl but you said it is soluble in water
The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one.
George Wald
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nitro-genes
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Phlogiston, hats off to you mate, right on the money! (Niet gedacht dat het zo snel geraden zou worden, haha). You got it right being a styphnate
together with Greenlight and Hissingnoise.
It was silver styphnate indeed. In the book on primary explosives by Matyáš and Pachman there was listed a short paragraph under "other styphnate
salts". It gives some references to silver styphnate as having potential as a primary explosive, so was curious if it would show more brisance then
lead styphnate in small quantities. My guess from the "heating on foil test" is that it seems to behave very similar to lead styphnate though...
[Edited on 23-11-2018 by nitro-genes]
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hissingnoise
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| Quote: | | It gives some references to silver styphnate as having potential as a primary explosive, so was curious if it would show more brisance then lead
styphnate in small quantities. |
Damn, phogiston beat me by a full 33 min..
It took us a while NG because we forgot about GI ─ powerlabs LS pic is practically identical to yours.
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phlogiston
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Ha, beat you to it 
Over the weekend, I was trying to think of obscure pyrotechnic mixtures/energetic materials to continue the thread with, but decided that I don't want
to break my rule about not doing pyrotechnic Chemistry, because I don't want to get into trouble.
So, if anyone can come up with fun new challenge to continue the thread, feel free to do so. I like these kind of threads. (dank nitro-genes, leuke
thread. Meer Nederlanders hier dan ik dacht)
[Edited on 26-11-2018 by phlogiston]
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