Explosives: Tree stump removal

[invalid unparseable]

It still would be iffy. It has to be tightly confined to explode or needs a detonator.

[Scott Lurndal]

Buying fuel oil and fertilizer will bring you to their attention, regardless of the outcome.

[Scott Lurndal]

Nitrogen just wants to be free.

[Clare Snyder]

Not if you have a lawn and a deisel truck or oil furnace - - -

[invalid unparseable]

That is one cool compound and I am surprised that it is not the most shock sensitive one.

I worked with many sensitive materials with less nitrogen content that were probably more explosive. Don't know how many people ended up in the hospital deviating from the safety precautions in our published procedures. My lab partner got twenty stitches in his head when he messed up on one.

With pure ammonium nitrate there is an extra oxygen atom which means explosion product not only contains water and nitrogen but also nitrogen oxides. Small amount of fuel oil additive would scavenge this oxygen in a cleaner explosion.

[Scott Lurndal]

It's just chemistry.

"Diazotization and subsequent dimerization of the triaminoguanidinium cation gave 1-diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole."

[bowman]

I had enough of that sort of thing back when you could get iodine crystals at the drugstore to make nitrogen triiodide. That gave a new meaning to purple haze when it blew.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Never got that sophisticated. We had to go to different drugstores to get the ingredients for gunpowder though.

[invalid unparseable]

Terrorists like making acetone peroxide with easily available acetone from the hardware store and peroxide from the drug store.

[Jacob Jones]

We did. My mate's mum was the chemistry teacher in the private high school.

We didn't.

[bowman]

The drugstore down the street was happy to sell me 1 lb boxes of saltpeter and flowers of sulfur. I assume he knew what I was up to but in that era kids were expected to blow stuff up. Crushing the charcoal was messy though. The light damned in a seventh grade science class. C12H22O11 -- lot of available carbon there and the water will take care of itself.

A little low on brisance but putting the mixture in a Cristy Dry Gas can made a very satisfying display.

It was much later in life that I learned about rocket candy.

Apparently the sulfur wasn't necessary but certainly added to the visuals.