Sandia Labs Researcher Develops Fertilizer Without the Explosive Potential 180
cylonlover writes "Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer, but when mixed with a fuel such as diesel, it makes a powerful explosive – as seen in last week's fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. But it's the deliberate use of the compound in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and acts of terror such as the Oklahoma City bombing that gives rise to even greater cause for concern. This is why Kevin Fleming, an optical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, developed a fertilizer alternative that isn't detonable and therefore can't be used in a bomb."
Acidifies soils (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article it acidifies soils which the author finds good for areas with alkaline soils. And he says that some areas of Afghanistan have alkaline soils. Fine, but unless Afghanistan is unlike the rest of the world, some areas will have alkaline soils and some have acidic soils. I happen to have acidic soils on my farm and would never use a fertilizer that would further decrease the pH. We have plenty of iron in the soils here already too.
The cost increase may be low, but they cannot argue that with the added materials and logistics, the cost will be the same in places that already have ammonium nitrate fertilizers in use. Perhaps where their crony governments force farmers to buy calcium carbonate fertilizer it would be cost neutral.
But until hunger is eliminated in the world and all the world has healthy food to eat, governments have no business increasing the cost of food. Far more than 180 have died due to malnutrition since the Murrah building. Governments could trying sticking to courts, police and defense if they want to minimize the incidence of terrorism. And maybe help out with world hunger if they just can't stand sitting on their hands.
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all the tanks are intact; not a BLEVE (Score:5, Informative)
Look st the post-explosion photos and you'll see that the anhydrous ammonia tanks are all intact. They're hard to miss - they're virtually the only thing left standing. BLEVE explosions obliterate the tanks they occur in and throw massive amounts of shrapnel.
Sorry, chief. It was an ammonium nitrate explosion. It was not a BLEVE (note the correct spelling.)
Re:Acidifies soils (Score:5, Informative)
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TFA says that you just need to mix the AN with a byproduct from steel manifacturing. That doesn't sound like it would make the stuff more expensive. In fact, I would say that since it would remove the need for all kind of administrative crap like background check, it could actually make fertilizer cheaper. Finally, the article says that it should actually be a better fertilizer in Afghan soil.
Re:Acidifies soils (Score:3, Informative)
Feric sulphate has an additional advantage: it stops the "Shake and Bake" production of meth cold by converting the lithium used to Lithium Amide: LiN2. It's been suggested as an instant cold pack additive for that reason.
"Shake and Bake" meth production involves generating ammonia in-situ with the reaction of NaOH (drain cleaner) with NH4NO3 (instant cold packs). This dissolves in some organic solvent, like methyl ethyl ketone, in which one has already dissolved pseudo-ephedrine. The presence of lithium (from batteries) results in a "Birch-like" reduction (sodium in anhydrous ammonia) of the pseudo-ephedrine to methamphetamine. The organic layer is filtered off, and the filtrate "crashed" with hydrigen chloride gas (from a battery acid/salt generator) to yield crystals of crude methamphetamine hydrochloride. The production of ammonia also results in production of water, and water is sometimes introduced at the start to kick-start the reaction.
The "cooking" (prior to filtration and crashing with HCL) generally takes place in a sealed soda bottle, with all reagents present. Besides the pressure buildup from the ammonia gas (requiring periodic "burping" of the bottle), a signficant side reaction of 2Li + 2H2O -> 2LiOH +H2(g) is exothermic, and can both igniite the H2 (and organic solvent) if any oxygen is present, as well as possibly have the lithium melt through the plastic wall of the container (which will then expose the contents to atmospheric oxygen, possibly igniting them).
It's amazing that people resort to doing this.
Now, lithium and ammonia will react to produce lithium amide: Li + 2NH3 -> LiN2 + 3H2, and the reaction is exothermic, but it requires a high activation energy, so is usally slow enough to ignore in this case. Iron ions catalyse this, and the production of Lithium Amide kills the Birch-like reduction cold. Thus, it has been suggested to add iron salts to instant cold packs so they can't be used as a source of ammonia for "shake and bake" meth synthesis. The reader is left to figure out how this can be overcome.
Note: this was intended for educational purposes. I strongly discourage meth production. The process above is extremely dangerous, and the product is really bad for your health. It should be necessary to state that producing methamphetamine is illegal as well. Attempts to make it "safe" generally involve trying to keep the lithium floating on the organic solvent layer while the water is being produced below it. However, periodic shaking tends to bring the two together for brief periods, until the reaction between them is quenched once the bottle is stilled and the lithium floats to the top of the organic solvent layer again. I learned about it while researching solvated electrons. Seriously, the process described is already "all over the internet".
Re: Useless .... (Score:4, Informative)
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