Oxygen Bleach

[Guy King]

The message from Richard Brooks contains these words:

It's also believed to have polished off the Kursk.

[Sofa - Spud]

Powered the Nazi rocket plane the Me163 and we used it in the 50's in the blu steel rockets AFAIK

[robgraham]

Yes - and a British sub in Gibralter sometime ago. There was something involving brass/copper and the hydogen peroxide - can't remember whether everything had to be of these two or whether it was the other way round.

Judging from the stories coming out of the Old Bailey, hair-dressers' suppliers seem to be the source - but don't go and buy a box full !!

Rob

[Richard Brooks]

Doesn't the peroxide sold in hairdressers come in varying strengths ?

You couldn't have books around like that in kids libraries now. It showed you how the charges in chimney stacks were placed to blow them up (or down) and the chemicals to make home made fireworks and explained what brisance was. Kids were spoilt in those days but it kept them reading! :-)

Richard.

[Owain]

That's a small but precious piece of reassurance in an uncertain but-they-prpbably-are-watching-me world.

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

Blue Steel, air launched nuclear missile, used peroxide and kersone. Blue Streak, ground launched ICBM, used liquid oxygen and kerosene.

[Guy King]

The message from "robgraham" contains these words:

I wouldn't want a box of hair-dressers anyway.

[Stuart Noble]

Ecover laundry bleach. It was on the shelves in Waitrose last time I looked. Sodium percarbonate

[Sofa - Spud]

you should see it froth!!

[Peter Parry]

T-Stoff

That was in the High Test Peroxide (HTP) form which is an 85-96% concentration compared with about 5% in hairdressing bleach or 2-3% concentration in the form usually sold in Chemists.

HTP in torpedoes caused the loss of HMS Sidon in 1956 as well as (probably) the Kursk. Handling HTP requires considerable care and special equipment.

[donald haarmann]

"Richard Brooks"

[Richard Brooks]

donald haarmann said the following on 14/02/07 16:59:

Well, it was an American book which described this, long out of print by now and wouldn't be allowed on the shelves now.

Richard.

[Mike Cawood, HND BIT]

Isn't getting kids to experiment with explosive materials somewhat irresponsible, even in those days? Regards Mike.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|!> There was a great kids book in the local library that mentioned that |!> hydrogen peroxide mixed with manganese dioxide was what powered some WWII |!> torpedoes. There was also a small projectile launcher experiment using |!> the two same materials on the same page.

|!Isn't getting kids to experiment with explosive materials somewhat |!irresponsible, even in those days?

I never lost a friend to explosive experiments, or putting bangers into bottles, or shooting rockets at each other

[Huge]

Nonsense.

And my mate Ivan only lost his eyebrows.

[Richard Brooks]

Mike Cawood, HND BIT said the following on 15/02/07 08:26: > Isn't getting kids to experiment with explosive materials somewhat

Well, they did also have some pages towards the back with some safer stuff for school projects such as that stuff that makes loads of ash and smoke. That of course was for the only experiment I've seen on tv comedy shows which was the volcano. There must have been whole school halls full of them!

That and the pellets that make those snakes was all part of the indoor fireworks pages. The book was also full of chemical equations that explained what the chemicals were. This was in the Temple Cowley library in Oxford but that was over thirty five years ago now so it must be gone by now. :-)

Richard.

[Richard Brooks]

Dave Fawthrop said the following on 15/02/07 08:34:

I once saw a policeman doing a tap dance in a doorway trying to put out, probably a mixture of potassium permangate (used to be used as a mouthwash) and glycerine (used for stopping cake icing going solid) which was the fashionable nuisance at the time.

It wasn't me, BTW!

Richard.

[Sofa - Spud]

Ho Ho - piece of scaffold pole and a rocket !! it was like an RPG!!

[Andy Dingley]

If kids are going to experiment, then hydrogen peroxide is one of the safer ways to do it. It just can't detonate if it tried and the hazard goes up with the concentration so it's easy to start small. Until you get to HTP, the worst hazard is the chemical problem of eye splash, not the physics of the explosions. The major safety precautions are just to wear goggles and don't seal it into anything (if you can't grok those, then autodarwinate). It's _incomparably_ safer to something like collecting Armstrong's mixture up from scraped caps, recycling aluminmium mixtures from fireworks or the like.

Also look at the excellent safety record of the early British HTP rocket program, compared to the US (or US Navy!) liquid fuelled programs.

Manganese compounds were used in WW2 as the late-war ersatz probelms started to bite. They weren't efficient enough for the flying rockets, but they were successful for the bulky and static V1 launch ramps. An early unsuccessful model of the Me163 engines used it too in a bipropellant system (Ian Hogg).

[Tony Williams]

A lad at school lost his thumb and part of his palm when trying to fill a tube with home made fireworks mixture. There were some burns to his face but his eyes were ok.