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Author: Subject: Highest VOD binary explosives?
XeonTheMGPony
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[*] posted on 14-6-2019 at 19:29


Quote: Originally posted by underground  
Quote: Originally posted by XeonTheMGPony  
Quote: Originally posted by underground  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCovDr4FVNQ


I'm getting sick of this reaction, been doing a crap load of batches to build up a stock of it, need to just run it swimming pool sized batch!


He looks to got not that bad yields on his video. Here another video with almost the same procedure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0fiKkREk4g

You may miss something

[Edited on 14-6-2019 by underground]


Key word "Looks" it is low yielding to start with and can be finicky.
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MineMan
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[*] posted on 14-6-2019 at 20:37


Anyways. Has anyone actually made astrolite? It is reportedly still used, and was quite popular. Can’t be that bad!? I say we are risk adverse these days.
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C6(NO2)5CH2CH(CH3)N(NO2)2
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[*] posted on 27-6-2019 at 15:13
An Altered State of Matter


Quote: Originally posted by MineMan  
Emulsions are not made at room tempature. When we load holes for mining it comes out very hot.


I know this discussion is dead, sorry I couldn't reply sooner, but THIS is the secret to emulsion's success, and the reason mining isn't done with solutions of polar fuels and AN. Your quote is backed up by one from this paper: https://www.mt.com/us/en/home/supportive_content/matchar_app...

Quote:
In the emulsion, the aqueous phase consists of a supersaturated solution of ammonium nitrate (AN), which is metastable due to supersaturation.


Whoever came up with this is just genius. AN is normally solid at 100C, but just a trace of water will dissolve it at that temperature. At 100C, saturated AN solution has all the liquid properties which allow it to be emulsified in submicron particles, while still being "dry" enough (~10% water by weight)to detonate. It's a great application for the steep solubility curve of AN. But that's not the clever part.

Because the droplets of AN solution are in the dispersed phase, separated by oil films, one of the droplets crystalizing will not trigger others. So AN that would otherwise only look slightly damp at room temperature, acts like a liquid oxidizer instead. The very act of making it into a water-in-oil emulsion is what lets you have such a concentrated AN solution at room temperature.

As cool as this is, it's not encouraging for the idea of solution based binaries. Maybe an extremely concentrated solution of 75:25 calcium nitrate:methanol, or 76:13:11 AN:sugar:water, would be explosive near its boiling point, but as soon as it cools down, it will crystallize again. I was hoping there was some way to get AN to stay liquid at room temperature with just a touch of water (or other solvent) and no emulsification, but the reality is it's just not that easy. The way I see it, Astrolite gets over this hurdle by not having to get near oxygen balence. Wikipedia says liquid astrolite is 1 part hydrazine to two of AN, the stoichiometric amount is 1:5. Although hydrazine is not detonatable by itself, it's decomposition is still very energetic without an oxidizer. This gives the mixture good performance inspite of not having nearly enough oxidizer.

Unfortunately, anhydrous hydrazine is far more expensive toxic and hard to obtain than a simple fuel like diesel, alcohol, or even anhydrous ammonia. Does anyone else have ideas for a cheap oxidizer that's highly soluble in a combustible solvent? Probably more trouble than it's worth (toxic and requires high pressure, and high molecular weight/low oxidizing properties) but would any normal fuels dissolve in liquid compressed Cl2 or N2O without reacting at room temperature?

[Edited on 27-6-2019 by C6(NO2)5CH2CH(CH3)N(NO2)2]




Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
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[*] posted on 27-6-2019 at 15:36


Quote: Originally posted by MineMan  
Quote: Originally posted by C6(NO2)5CH2CH(CH3)N(NO2)2  
I find the idea of a High-performance binary very interesting. Basically, nitric acid is an oxidizer in its own right, and has been used as such in rockets. When you chemically combine it into something like picric acid or PETN, only some of that oxidizing capability is transferred into the compound. It would be much more cost effective if you could just combine nitrates or other oxidizers with a fuel, without any wasteful chemical reaction. The central problem is getting enough oxidizer dissolved into a fuel. Unless the reactants can dissolve, not all of the reaction will happen at the shock front. Take ammonal, for example. If you could a) get all the aluminum to react at the shock front, and b) compact it to it's theoretical density (AN~2.5g/cc, Al~2.7g/cc) you would have a composition that would likely exceed 10 km/sec. But because the aluminum does not react immediately, you will never get anywhere near those velocities.

Making a solution of a fuel and oxidizer will enable the reaction to happen much more rapidly, but the fuel has to have high energy and low oxygen requirements too. Water-based solutions of hydrazine, glycol etc will have too low of energy. Methanol will dissolve a near-ideal amount of calcium nitrate, but only when near it's boiling point. Anhydrous, or near-anhydrous hydrazine is probably one of the few fuels which can hope to exceed 8 km/sec.

By the way, this paper:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjCstSns-niAhXuGDQIHeLK DlAQFjAAegQIAxAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.575.4948%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&usg=AOvVaw10C1o d3DL667lmjYr5sRqa
mentions an effective emulsion with 77.66% AN, 4.68% NaN, 11.22%H2O, and 5.4% wax fuel. How can that little water dissolve that much AN at room temperature?


AN has a density of 1.7... emulsions usually top out at 1.2, they need microballons to detonate.

Emulsions are not made at room tempature. When we load holes for mining it comes out very hot.


When I first staring messing with energetics I made some emulsions and slurries senstized with ETN. This was a good paper on the different mixtures and there power specs. I liked Slurry I. Great way to strecth out the ETN by using AN and Urea.:)

http://www.wydawnictwa.ipo.waw.pl/cejem/vol-10-03-2013/Kunze...
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[*] posted on 27-6-2019 at 18:45


Quote: Originally posted by C6(NO2)5CH2CH(CH3)N(NO2)2  
Quote: Originally posted by MineMan  
Emulsions are not made at room tempature. When we load holes for mining it comes out very hot.


I know this discussion is dead, sorry I couldn't reply sooner, but THIS is the secret to emulsion's success, and the reason mining isn't done with solutions of polar fuels and AN. Your quote is backed up by one from this paper: https://www.mt.com/us/en/home/supportive_content/matchar_app...

Quote:
In the emulsion, the aqueous phase consists of a supersaturated solution of ammonium nitrate (AN), which is metastable due to supersaturation.


Whoever came up with this is just genius. AN is normally solid at 100C, but just a trace of water will dissolve it at that temperature. At 100C, saturated AN solution has all the liquid properties which allow it to be emulsified in submicron particles, while still being "dry" enough (~10% water by weight)to detonate. It's a great application for the steep solubility curve of AN. But that's not the clever part.

Because the droplets of AN solution are in the dispersed phase, separated by oil films, one of the droplets crystalizing will not trigger others. So AN that would otherwise only look slightly damp at room temperature, acts like a liquid oxidizer instead. The very act of making it into a water-in-oil emulsion is what lets you have such a concentrated AN solution at room temperature.

As cool as this is, it's not encouraging for the idea of solution based binaries. Maybe an extremely concentrated solution of 75:25 calcium nitrate:methanol, or 76:13:11 AN:sugar:water, would be explosive near its boiling point, but as soon as it cools down, it will crystallize again. I was hoping there was some way to get AN to stay liquid at room temperature with just a touch of water (or other solvent) and no emulsification, but the reality is it's just not that easy. The way I see it, Astrolite gets over this hurdle by not having to get near oxygen balence. Wikipedia says liquid astrolite is 1 part hydrazine to two of AN, the stoichiometric amount is 1:5. Although hydrazine is not detonatable by itself, it's decomposition is still very energetic without an oxidizer. This gives the mixture good performance inspite of not having nearly enough oxidizer.

Unfortunately, anhydrous hydrazine is far more expensive toxic and hard to obtain than a simple fuel like diesel, alcohol, or even anhydrous ammonia. Does anyone else have ideas for a cheap oxidizer that's highly soluble in a combustible solvent? Probably more trouble than it's worth (toxic and requires high pressure, and high molecular weight/low oxidizing properties) but would any normal fuels dissolve in liquid compressed Cl2 or N2O without reacting at room temperature?

[Edited on 27-6-2019 by C6(NO2)5CH2CH(CH3)N(NO2)2]


Well for hydrazine there are benefits of not having the material be oxygen balence, which is the low molecular weight of hydrogen gas...

Anyways. Are you sure the 2:1 is not balanced because the hydrogen only needs to be oxidized.
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[*] posted on 5-7-2019 at 11:23


After reading all above I recall the binary composition of NaClO4 + diethylene glycol (+ 8 -12% water). Which is uneconomical in industry but is totally reliable from No.8 on a diameter of 15mm. VoD 3000 - 7000 by diameter.
For someone can be both compounds more available than hydrazine or else described compounds....:cool:.....LL




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[*] posted on 17-12-2020 at 18:42


Quote:

[Quote]While a saturated solution contains about 75 weight percent ammonium perchlorate, solutions containing larger weight percentages of ammonium perchlorate can be prepared. For example, stoichiometric solutions which contain about 80 weight percent ammonium perchlorate and 20 weight percent ammonia can be prepared...

Saturated ammonium perchlorate-ammonium solutions and those that are less than saturated may be stored indefinitely without deterioration. They exhibit a vapor pressure of approximately 1 atmosphere at 20° C. and 50 psia at 165° F...

saturated ammonium perchlorate-ammonia produces up to a 10% lower impetus that the n-octane-nitric acid bipropellants. However, it also produces a substantially lower chamber temperature.


Okay, so I was looking at something totally different (actually a made up phrase on Urban Dictionary) and I stumbled across this which led promptly to this.

i'm not saying this would go high order, but there ya go... a completely liquid stoichiometric solution of a good oxidizer and a decent fuel "can be prepared." That 20% anhydrous ammonia content gives the mixture a lower heating value of 3.7kj/gm. The perchlorate's decomposition and auto-oxidation will contribute another 1160 j/gm (after subtracting the water's latent heat of evaporation) to that, for an energy content of ~4.86kj/gm, comparable to trinitrotoluene, and according to Wikipedia, over 25% more energetic than hydrazine nitrate. HN runs about 5500m/sec at 1.4kg/l, but increases to an impressive 8900m/sec at 1.68. I can't find anything on the density of the ammonia/perchlorate solution, but if we assume the volume of the solution is equal to the crystal volume of AP and the liquid volume of anhydrous NH3, we're looking at a bulk density at around 1.4kg/L. And this is with the sole products being N2 HCl and H2O, and a complete homogeneous solution so the reaction should proceed roughly as fast as for a molecular EM.

Just thought I'd share that. We had some speculation on whether an ammonium perchlorate anhydrous ammonia solution could work as a binary HE, and it looks like at very least it's a verified monopropellant.

[Edited on 18-12-2020 by Vomaturge]

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I now have a YouTube channel. So far just electronics and basic High Voltage experimentation, but I'll hopefully have some chemistry videos soon.
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