nitropyrotech
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PETN yields and plastisizing
So lately I ve just bought two big jugs of 20l of 55% nitric acid and 98% sulfuric acid, the COA however says that it has a concentration of 60ish
percent, I ve also bought 450g of Pentaeryirithol, in my lab I have a big reactor with a condensor, a overhead stirrer and two big dropping funnels,
also which an elelctrical thermometer ofc, I work without a fumehood, because it is quite hard to find one where I live, so I just wear a gas mask and
work with a powerful ventilator, I never synthesized PETN ever before, but I did ETN, RDX and HMX quite much, however those were either too sensitive
or just gave a shit yield. I ve decieded to switch too PETN because its the cheapest and a friendlier energetic compared to ETN. So did anyone tried
PETN before with those lower nitric acid concentration and got a great yield? I ve seen people get great yields with PETN, after all I am planning to
do even more with it, I have acess to PIB with an avg MW of around 55.000 and sebcatebis(2-ethylhexyl)sebacat, I am however unsure which oil I should
use I also never plastisized anything before, if anyone can get me tips I would appreciate
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Axt
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The reason fuming nitric acid is used is to keep impurities in solution, the addition of sulphuric acid causes these impurities to precipitate
contaminating the product. Now I'm not sure if this has ever been tested, but rather just taken as fact. Mixed acids using azeotropic nitric is best
done at a 1:2 by volume ratio 68% nitric acid to 98% sulphuric acid (this accounts for 1:1 water to H2SO4 both introduced in acids and produced in the
nitration). You can try mixed acids but if you get a poor product, you'll have validated Urbanski vol. 2 pg. 186.
As for the plasticiser, I can't give a specific answer to your question just a general answer to the topic title. Back in the day (like 20yrs ago) Blu
tack extracted with <100C bp fraction of petroleum (here this solvent is called shellite, over there it will be called something else). It's
dissolved and decanted from the calcium carbonate filler, if you don't have a massive centrifuge, you'll lose a portion but that's acceptable loss.
Dry a weighed portion out and weigh it to get plasticiser concentration of the solution. Motor oil was fine to keep it soft. I always called this PIB
but I have no idea, it does look like PIB when extracted and dried, but its proprietary they aint going to tell you what it is.
 
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Axt
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I should clarify that isn't actual blu tack, why it's not blue. It's some generic stuff that doesn't stick as well. Mileage may vary.
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Belowzero
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Same here with the motor oil. My method was crude but worked well. Use as little as possible and leave it a couple days. if it crumbles you have too
little and you add until it remains stable.
That way I was able to ballpark a percentage estimate.
However, much more important is the crystal size. I found that mixing very finely 'crashed' crystals mixed with slower grown crystal allowed for a
material that needs less added inerts to give it good properties. It makes sense when you imagine different particles sizes combined and its
mechanical properties.
Density is also rather important for the VOD and brisance. Something easily ruined.
The smaller crystals also help to gain a higher density.
Amazing that you have access to sebcatebis(2-ethylhexyl)sebacat even if I could I never dared to actually order it.
Also, don't underestimate the amount of mixing this requires. I found that for it to have true plastic properties you need to knead it much longer
than you would initially think, no really much longer!
[Edited on 17-10-2025 by Belowzero]
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nitropyrotech
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Quote: Originally posted by Belowzero  | Same here with the motor oil. My method was crude but worked well. Use as little as possible and leave it a couple days. if it crumbles you have too
little and you add until it remains stable.
That way I was able to ballpark a percentage estimate.
However, much more important is the crystal size. I found that mixing very finely 'crashed' crystals mixed with slower grown crystal allowed for a
material that needs less added inerts to give it good properties. It makes sense when you imagine different particles sizes combined and its
mechanical properties.
Density is also rather important for the VOD and brisance. Something easily ruined.
The smaller crystals also help to gain a higher density.
Amazing that you have access to sebcatebis(2-ethylhexyl)sebacat even if I could I never dared to actually order it.
Also, don't underestimate the amount of mixing this requires. I found that for it to have true plastic properties you need to knead it much longer
than you would initially think, no really much longer!
[Edited on 17-10-2025 by Belowzero] |
So I ve plastisized with PIB, DOS and food grade mineral oil just like in the recepie for C-4, it worked really well, I ve dissolved the PIB with the
DOS and mineral oil in toluene, than heated it up till boiling, some time later the PIB dissolved and than I ve added my RDX from the project before,
it really turned out well after it dried, I havent detonated it yet, but the consistency is like with hard playdough, although it tooked quite long to
mix everything together it was definitly worth it, next time I am gonne get some old dough mixer and go with bigger batches, I never did it before
with PETN but I ll prob try sometime when I get my Pentaerytrithol. Btw if you wonder you can order DOS from china, all you gotta do is to order it
from an agent like CNfans or other ones, youll have to order it via other websites or alternatively you can search on theirs too, than you gonna
proceed to ship your desired product to their warehouse and after that the agent is going to send you pictures of your product and finally after all
those steps you choose the shipping method that is going to you, it usually takes 2 weeks till a month so you have to wait but the shipping is cheap,
hope I could help you out with that
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ManyInterests
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In terms of plasticizing, dugan boomfax on youtube released a (so far) 7 video series on PBX and plasticizing explosive material. I haven't watched
them all yet, but they are fascinating. The link is here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb6BzzMi96HbTnloaH7YiesVE...
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Axt
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| Quote: Originally posted by ManyInterests | | In terms of plasticizing, dugan boomfax on youtube released a (so far) 7 video series on PBX and plasticizing explosive material.
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That was interesting, I think I just watched a guy mixing random things in his shed for 5 hrs, way more interesting than anything they can put on TV.
While most things aren't working it still is interesting to see the extent to which they are not. We did try trap glue way back in the roguesci days
but rodent glue is not really a thing here, I still have the insect sticky trap glue on the shelf here though. Polyamide resin was another that was
tried, that is the hardener in 2 part epoxy.
I tried to look up the composition of Blu Tack (which I thought was universal, but seems is not, the sticky putty used to hang posters etc.). This is
the best I could find in patent EP3561017A1, which aims to improve the Blu Tack formula.
"Later, the company Bostik introduced this formulation, dyed blue to distinguish chewing gum compositions, as a reusable, kneadable PSA under the name
"Blu-Tack". The basic ingredients of chalk, polyisobutylene rubber and paraffin oil are still used today in all kneadable pressure-sensitive adhesive
masses available on the market."
It does seem indeed that it is PIB. They give it as a comparison composition in patent as attached. It seems to be about 76% filler, 10.5% PIB, 11%
oil, 2.3% plasticiser (? not translated well).
This is the exact weight percentage I get when dissolving 225g (3 packets) into 1L of solvent. A 6.7% solution of binder.
[Edited on 21-10-2025 by Axt]
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Radiums Lab
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Does styroform dissolved in acetone work well?
Water is dangerous if you don't know how to handle it, elemental fluorine (F₂) on the other hand is pretty tame if you know what you are doing.
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dettoo456
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Not unless you add a plasticizer, and even then, you would need to tinker with the ratios of plastic/plasticizer to find what works best. Acetone is
also miscible in water, which can be a good or bad thing when mixing plastics in - your final plasticized EM may be 'wet' from residual water absorbed
by the acetone at some point in the mixing stage. This isnt too big of a deal but may act to hydrolyze the EM in the mix.
This may help - https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0764340.pdf
[Edited on 26-10-2025 by dettoo456]
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Axt
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Dioctyl phthalate is used there to plasticise polystyrene.
Something to add the list of likely bad ideas would be commercial MEKP which use dimethyl phthalate to plasticise and stabilise MEKP for crosslinking
unsaturated polyester. Polystyrene being saturated shouldn't be affected by the MEKP but may be plasticised by the DMP.
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gnitseretni
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Just wanted to say that using mixed acids does work. That's how I did it as I wasn't able to source the good shit. I did try to distill 90+% HNO3 on a
few occasions until I get too lazy for it. My HNO3 was like 58-ish% iirc.
That said, keep in mind that I'm just an amateur who's grateful he still has all of his limbs so take everything I say with a large grain of salt!
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qwerty
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In his endevours he has good results with PIB and sugar (the inert sugar cookie). But crashed out PETN does not work well and stays crumbly.
In a PBX file online they use a mix of grain sizes. Which may be the key for the HMW PIB to work
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4612485
In PBXs 9007, 9205 and 9010 the RDX is a bimodal distribution consisting of 3 parts coarse (180um) and 1 part fine (25um). In 9407 the RDX is all
fine.
[Edited on 27-10-2025 by qwerty]
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Axt
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One way of getting binders to work that otherwise do not is to use a double base smokeless gun powder (DBSP) as a cutting agent preferably a fine ball
powder generally used in pistols, .22LR powder maybe, as long as it's not flake. For example using Blu-Tack it likes about 20% binder but it can be
reduced to 12% if DBSP is added. It's not pretty but it does show that grain size makes a big difference, 12% blu-tack added to fine crystals it just
a crumbly powder. This is of no value if you want to test properties of a specific material though. 55:33:12 ETN: DBSP:BT is one example. As a bonus
DBSP donates its stabilisers to the ETN.
[Edited on 29-10-2025 by Axt]
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