Re: Chem: Silicon Explosives now

From: Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Fri Aug 03 2001 - 06:16:14 MDT


On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> I just caught that on the TV news as well and was underwhelmed.
> Pour liquid oxygen on porous silicon and you get a bang. Duh.

I thought it was nanoporous, with a covalently bound monoatomic hydrogen
layer on top.

> Surprise. Liquid oxygen plus coal dust, sawdust, etc has already been
> used as an explosive in mining around the time of WWI.

It was also used during WWII in the Soviet Union. Cryotrap with organics
condensing oxygen due to a leak is the bane of every experimental chemist.
Blue cryotrap spell "UH-OH". I've never seen one blow, but people say it's
spectacular.

> Well, maybe that is special.

They claim 10^6 faster kinetics than trinitrotoluene, and a higher energy
density (duh, TNT is rather lame).



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