ANFO Questions??

[The Banker]

I am fairly new to ANFO's

what fuel oil would be the best to mix with AN.
I have herd that mixing kerosene with AN will slow down or stop the AN collecting water.
The bottle of kerosene i have says that it has low sulfur will that affect any thing.
Urea is a lot more common in the ice packs i can get.
What is the average percent of AN and Urea in the ice packs.
Is it possible to purify Urea with methanol.
What would be the process to purify the Urea.
Where is a common source to get methanol besides anti freeze.

[fuo]

Diesel fuel a common fuel for ANFO because it is readily available on farms for their equipment and since Ammonium Nitrate is a fertilizer that is also common on farms.

What do you plan on doing with the Urea to make it work in this? When I checked you can nitrate Urea in Nitric Acid to form Urea Nitrate but giving me the idea that it is impossible to form Ammonium Nitrate from Urea unless you make Urea Nitrate then mix it with a Ammonium X compound to give you Ammonium Nitrate and Urea X. Even then it just seems like wasting time when if you look hard enough you can find either fertilizers or cold packs that contain Ammonium Nitrate.

The cold packs I've seen contain Ammonium Nitrate and the more common one for me was also Urea. But i think Urea is pretty much useless for this unless you nitrate it and then mix it with a fuel oil, even then I would say you are better off buying the Ammonium Nitrate cold packs.

[The Banker]

dose the Kerosene affect the hygroscopic factor in the AN.

[fuo]

I don't think it does affect how hygroscopic the ammonium nitrate is, but I could be wrong.

What makes you think it would?

If I were you I would test how Kerosene and Diesel work out with Ammonium Nitrate and if you don't see too much of a difference there I'd go by the price of it. When walking in a hardware store I saw a big jug of Kerosene under the solvents section for next to nothing. As for Diesel last i saw the price of that is all messed up with the price of gasoline.

[AgentApoc]

As for fuel, I would go with NitroMethane. You can get it at most hobbyshops as it's used for model car fuel. However, using NitroMethane increases the AN's sensitivity by a large amount so handle it with alot more caution around fire and such.

[Hetfield]

Yeah, with the correct ratios ANNM can have a TNT equivalency of upto 1.6

It can also have it's VOD, Brissance and sensitivity futhered still with aluminium powder

-Hetfield

[X-ray Cat]

Use 7% in weight.. Nitromethane, Diesel, Kerosine, MNT are all good.. Believe you can also mix it with mononitronaphtalene but that wouldn't be a fuel oil.. lol Enjoy!
PS. thoroughly dry your anfo before using and consider grinding it to finer powder if there's a possibility of it being coated.. It'll soak up fuel better

[Hetfield]

Yeah, And remeber how ridiculously hydroscopic it is.

Anybody else found this phenomenon to be a really good use for silica gel?

[X-ray Cat]

Lol.. you actually use sylica gell to keep your AN dry?? haha

[fenderbender48]

Hey... that sounds like a great idea! I bet the iron packets that come in packages of pepperoni would work pretty well too...

[Hetfield]

I've not tried it, but the thought is based on an assumption that silica gel Should by logic be more hydroscopic than AN.

The thought process behind this, is that silica is used in the little packets, rather than AN, and AN should be cheaper and easier to produce.

Just thinking about it.

[X-ray Cat]

Or just use water absorbers, available in every household store

[Hetfield]

never come across these.

UK?

[Timm]

What dictates how hygroscopic a chemical is? I like Hetfield's term, "ridiculously hygroscopic" ( for AN). For you less pre-occupied home chemists, an informative experiment could involve some calcium chloride (dri-z-air, moisture adsorbent, ect), some ammonium nitrate, a couple bowls or something, an accurate scale, and a sealable tote.

Personally, i would set up the above listed items in the logical manner, take an exact amount of water, 5-10 mL or so, dose each previously weighed (equal amounts) in the bowl or whatever, seal it up in the tote, and see where the water goes. Damn if I only had the time and space to do the shit I come up with! Probably better that I don't..

[AgentApoc]

As far as keeping AN dry goes my method is to put it in the oven for ~3 hours at 200F and once it's dry and finely grinded I put it into a pyrex test tube and plug the end, that keeps it fairly dry for me.