Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | Was watching the history channel "modern marvels" series this morning. featuring all kinds of acids.
They went on about how nitric acid is part of many explosives and Ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and the conditions where / how AN can be explosive. The fellow giving the demonstration put a few ounces of AN fertilizer powder in a beaker, sprinkled a bit of Zinc powder over the AN , then added a bit of water. It produced an almost instant explosive flame. Whoosh and it was gone.
This made me wonder about the explosion at the fertilizer plant at West, Texas. AN fertilizer, A good chance they had zinc fertilizer and the FD putting water on a fire ????
It repeats at 5 pm central daylight time on Dish channel 121. I always thought that AN was only explosive when mixed with an oil like diesel fuel, but maybe much more than that to it. I read that the Texas City ship explosion did not involve any sort of oil, only twine and fertilizer in the hold.
Edited by Jon Hagen 4/22/2013 13:38
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Watching the History channel this morning, story about AN.
