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- Demolition Article #1
- By: King Arthur
-
-
- Like all chemists I must advise you all to take the greatest
- care and caution when you are doing this. Even if you have made
- this stuff before.
-
- This first article will give you information on making
- nitroglyerin, the basic ingredient in a lot of explosives such as
- straight dynamites, and geletin dynamites.
-
- ---------------------------------------
- Making nitroglycerin
- ---------------------------------------
-
- 1. Fill a 75-milliliter beaker to the 13 ml. Level with
- fuming red nitric acid, of 98% pure concentration.
-
- 2. Place the beaker in an ice bath and allow to cool below
- room temp.
-
- 3. After it has cooled, add to it three times the amount of
- fuming sulferic acid (99% h2so4). In other words, add to
- the now-cool fuming nitric acid 39 ml. Of fuming sulferic
- acid.
- When mixing any acids, always do it slowly and carefully
- to avoid splattering.
-
- 4. When the two are mixed, lower thier temp. By adding more
- ice to the bath, about 10-15 degrees centigrade. (Use a
- mercury-operated thermometer)
-
- 5. When the acid solution has cooled to the desired
- temperature, it is ready for the glycerin. The glycerin
- must be added in small amounts using a medicine dropper.
- (Read this step about 10 times!)
- Glycerin is added slowly and carefully (i mean careful!)
- Until the entire surface of the acid it covered with it.
-
- 6. This is a dangerous point since the nitration will take
- place as soon as the glycerin is added. The nitration
- will produce heat, so the solution must be kept below 30
- degrees centigrade! If the solution should go above 30
- degrees, immediately dump the solution into the ice bath!
- This will insure that it does not go off in your face!
-
- 7. For hte first ten minutes of nitration, the mixture
- should be gently stirred. In a normal reaction the
- nitroglycerin will formas a layer on top of the acid
- solution, while the sulferic acid will absorb the excess
- water.
- 8. After the nitration has taken place, and the
- nitroglycerin has formed on the top of the solution, the
- entire beaker should be transferred slowly and carefully
- to another beaker of water.
- When this is done the nitroglycerin will settle at the
- bottem so the other acids can be drained away.
-
- 9. After removing as much acid as posible without disturbing
- the nitroglycerin, remove the nitroglycerin with an
- eyedropper and place it in a bicarbonate of soda (sodium
- bicarbonate in case you didn't know) solution. The sodium
- is an alkalai and will nuetralize much of the acid
- remaining. This process should be repeated as much as
- necesarry using blue litmus paper to check for the
- presence of acid. The remaining acid only makes the
- nitroglycerin more unstable than it already is.
-
- 10. Finally! The final step is to remove the nitroglycerin
- from the bicarbonate. His is done with and eye- dropper,
- slowly and carefully. The usual test to see if nitration
- has been successful is to place one drop of the
- nitroglycerin on metal and ignite it. If it is true
- nitroglycerin it will burn with a clear blue flame.
-
- ** Caution **
- nitro is very sensative to decomposition, heating dropping, or
- jarring, and may explode if left undisturbed and cool.
-