Flash Powder: Mg/[Cu(NH3)4]SO4*H2O

Testing an experimental flash powder consisting of
1/6 Mg powder (hand-ground, with a grain size of approx. 0.2 mm)
5/6 [Cu(NH3)4]SO4*H2O (copper(II) tetrammine sulfate hydrate)

First 100 mg, then 350 mg.

Better results could maybe reached by using finer Mg powder and better mixing.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• flash
• powder
• mg
• magnesium
• copper
• tetrammine
• sulfate
• hydrate
• ammonia
• kupfer
• sulfat
• ammoniak
• pyro
• bks
• explosion
• knall

[bla287]

@lamboroghini Yeah, you don't have such ridiculous taxes and such a paranoid government which make the sale of such stuff a rather rare niche thing.

[lamboroghini]

@bla287 why so much money for mg powder. in the US, the most expensive that i have seen is about 40 dollars...

[Rannyfash]

@antiswattt2 but NH4OH + HCl ==> NH4Cl + H2O, whats the use in ammonium chloride? i would make a mixture of ammonia and copper nitrate, tetraamine nitrate? sounds like fun fun fun :D

[antiswattt2]

ya ive tried detonating pure ammonium nitrate (: if you add sugar to it (17%) then it will be alot more easy to detonate and also more powerful.. havent you tried making some oxidizers for magnesium? i can recommend Ba(NO3)2 from sparklers.. or NH4NO3, ammonium nitrate or KMnO4, potassium permanganate (: thats the 3 most powerful ive tried.. the NH4NO3 one, you need to measure it out very well.. by volume, but it works really good (: if you want, check my video ''flash powder deflagration test

[bla287]

(cont)

NH4NO2 also exists but it's too unsafe to handle. The strongest "conventional" nitro-based explosive would be octanitrocubane, an even much stronger one would be polymeric nitrogen, but this has not been isolated yet under normal circumstances (it's only stable under extremely high pressure)

BTW here in Tyskland you get max. 9% ammonia in hardware stores but you can order 25% online but it's quite expensive.

[bla287]

LOL, usually I'm not into high explosive stuff, I'm just a chemistry student with some interest in pyro (I think 90% of chemistry students, including professors are :D)

But in this special case here, I don't even know if the ammonia plays an active role. I used it mainly because it's better than using the pentahydrate, because the latter one would absorb too much energy. The most known explosive ammonium compund would be NH4NO3 but you need quite a lot of initial energy to detonate it. (cont)

[antiswattt2]

hm... well ok i may try that after TACN (: aaand after i get some NH4OH ... you can buy that stuff in all stores in denmark :P now i understand why my mom went insane when she saw i wrote NH4OH + HCl once.. told me ammonia is used for making explosives.. which it really is! and really easy explosives (= ive heard that the VoD of TACS with magnesium and ferrocerium should be around 8000 m/s? :S sounds like alot.. and can it detonate wihout fuel?

[bla287]

To be honest, I don't know the exact ratio anymore but I had 25% NH3 aswell. I think I used an excess of NH3. You need 4 NH3 molecules per Cu(2+) ion to form the complex, so it's up to you to look up the molar masses of NH3 and CuSO4*5H2O and calculate the masses. Then just use the double amount of NH3 you calculated and you should be fine.

To make it precipitate out afterwards you just have to add the same amounts of ethanol (rubbing alcohol is ok) and acetone as the volume of your solution

[antiswattt2]

i may make TACN.. also TACS..

bla287, can you tell me if i have to use exact ratios of ammonia and CuSo4 solution? i can get 25% NH3.. also i got some acetone.. i guess acetone will work when washing the crystals? (:

[bla287]

Exactly. Though I must say that you cannot reach good grain sizes with that method... unfortunately the only other alternative would be paying like 80€ (~110$) for 1 kg of finer Mg powder, and that's just too much for a uni student.