DIYbanter - View Single Post

Tex

In article .com,
says...

Oleg Lego wrote:
The Mark & Juanita entity posted thusly:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:28:25 -0500, "sweetsawdust"
wrote:
.... snipped

Here's a really wild hypothesis: Concentrated
NItric acid reacts with celluose to make an explosive (guncotton).
If somebody splashed a little nitric acid on the tree many years
ago then there might have been a little explosive spot in the wood.
I wonder, if you spilled ammonium nitrate fertilizer on a tree,
could it form an inclusion that would go bang fifty years later?

If you didn;t have a posting history, or this was April, I wouldn't
believe the story.

VERY WILD, indeed!

a) HNO3 (nitric acid) would kill any live tree tissue it stayed in
contact with for any significant amount of time -- want an example?
Stick your finger or other appendage in a bottle of it, don't wash it
off, wait a while. It might not kill the entire appendage, but it'll
turn real yellow and hurt like hell!

b) NH4NO3 (ammonium nitrate) is not an explosive -- it is an oxidant.
When combined with a fuel source (usually hydrocarbons of some sort) the
mixture can be explosive under proper conditions. Is what you're
suggesting that someone bored a hole in a tree, inserted a quantity of
ammonium nitrate, had it encapsulated by the wood tissue rather than
dissolve in the sap and kill the tree, and years later supply the
oxidant for a dust explosion? I'd have to say, possible. But, then
again, so is it possible for a sufficient number of monkeys continually
banging on keyboards to have one of them finally pound out the entire
textual contents of the Library of Congress!