nitric acid

[ammonium nitrate]

hi, i have an account on apc aswell as sfn but everybody is telling me that nitric acid is non explosive when i have been told by a reliable source that it is one of the ingredients to nitroglycerine, can i please get a bit of back up

[mississippichem]

Nitroglycerine is an organo nitrate compound. Nitric acid is just a nitrate anion with an extra proton. The abundance of [ce]R-CONO_2[/ce] linakges in nitroglycerine is what makes it unstable and therefore explosive. Nitric acid just doesn't have that type of structure.

 

Edited January 21, 2011 by mississippichem

[ammonium nitrate]

ok, so what would it actually do in contact with glycerin?

[CaptainPanic]

ok, so what would it actually do in contact with glycerin?

It reacts in a possible runaway reaction, and forms an unstable explosive. Don't play with this... it can go wrong in many ways, all of which will hurt you or even kill you.

[Horza2002]

Nitric acid is just a compound that gives a proton easily (like hydrochloric or sulphuric acids) i.e. its a Bronsted acid. However, in this case, nitric acid can also nitrated compounds which is what heppens in the presence of glycerine. So while it itself is not explosive, the products of its reactions sometimes are.....I feel the need to reiterate CaptainPanic...don't mess around/try make this stuff....if your lucky you'll spend the rest of you life in jail.

[mississippichem]

Not to mention that if the reaction gets out of hand half way through you'll have an exploding beaker full of oxidizing acid and flammable organic. That's all four chemical hazards at once (acid/base, flammable, explosive, re-dox).