Chapter 13: Nitrogen and
its Compounds
nobel | nobel prizes | explosives
Nobel
The word dynamite - the product and the name invented by Alfred Nobel
- comes from the Greek word δυναμιν
(dunamin), meaning "abundant power". It in the word used in
Luke 24:49, the last verse in which Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke
(quoted from NIV).
I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in
the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
As an aside, there is no Nobel prize for mathematics, and the matter
has been the subject of speculation ever since. Wikipedia:
A common
legend states that Nobel decided against a prize in mathematics because
a woman - said to be either his fiancé or mistress - rejected
him for or cheated on him with a famous mathematician, often claimed
to be Gösta Mittag-Leffler. There is no historical evidence to
support the story, and Nobel was never married.
In 2003 the Abel
Prize (named after a Norwegian mathematician), awarded by the king
of Norway, was created to fill the gap.
Error in textbook: Alfred Nobel did not invent the blasting cap.
That was invented 119 years earlier, and several different forms were
invented before Alfred Nobel produced the first pyrotechnic fuse blasting
cap in 1864. The first "generally modern type" blasting cap
came along 11 years later, invented by someone else. Wikipedia:
The first blasting cap or detonator was demonstrated in 1745,
when a Dr. Watson of the Royal Society showed that the electric spark
of a Leyden Jar could ignite black powder.
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia made a commercial
blasting cap consisting of a paper tube full of black powder, with wires
leading in both sides and wadding sealing up the ends. The two wires
came close but did not touch, so a large electric spark discharge between
the two wires would fire the cap.
In 1822 the first hot wire detonator was produced by Dr Robert
Hare. Using one strand separated out of a multistrand wire as the hot
bridgewire, this blasting cap ignited a pyrotechnic mixture (believed
to be potassium chlorate/arsenic/sulphur) and then a charge of tamped
black powder.
In 1864, Alfred Nobel introduced the first pyrotechnic fuse
blasting cap, using mercury fulminate to detonate dynamite.
In 1868,
H. Julius Smith introduced a cap that combined a spark gap ignitor and
mercury fulminate, the first electric cap able to detonate dynamite.
In 1875, Perry "Pell" Gardiner and Smith independently
developed and marketed caps which combined the hot wire detonator with
mercury fulminate explosive. These were the first generally modern type
blasting caps. Modern caps use different explosives and separate primary
and secondary explosive charges, but are generally very similar to the
Gardiner and Smith caps.
Electric match caps were developed in the early 1900s in Germany,
and spread to the US in the 1950s when ICI International purchased
Atlas Powder Co. These match caps have become the predominant world
standard cap type.
Error in textbook: 1901 was the beginning of last century,
not near the beginning. The textbook author apparently can't count. There
are 100 years in a century, with the first century being AD 1 to AD 100,
with no year numbered AD 0.
Error in textbook: The last year of last century was actually
2000. The textbook author apparently still can't count.
Nobel Prizes
The 2000 Nobel
Prize in Chemistry was won by Alan Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid, and Hideki
Shirakawa. Alan
MacDiarmid was born on 14 April 1927 in Masterton, New Zealand. He
and his two colleagues worked on conductive polymers (first reported in
1977), for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize.
Wikipedia: He was
awarded New Zealand's highest honour, the Order of New Zealand, in 2001.
The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at
Victoria University is named after him. He died on 7 February 2007. More from Wikipedia:
The Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery
that plastics can, after certain modifications, be made electrically
conductive. The work progressed to yield important practical applications.
Conductive plastics can be used for anti-static substances for photographic
film and 'smart' windows that can exclude sunlight. Semi-conductive
polymers have been applied in light-emitting diodes, solar cells and
displays in mobile telephones. Future developments in molecular electronics
are predicted to dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size
of computers.
The 1997 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and its chief spokesperson Jody Williams,
for their work in bringing about the Mine Ban Treaty, signed by 122 governments
in December 1997. It's also called the Ottawa
Treaty, after the city in which it was signed, and came into force
in March 1999.
My father Neil Mander represented the New Zealand Campaign
Against Landmines (CALM, a member of ICBL), at the Ottawa Convention,
along with the then New Zealand Convenor John Head. My father went on
to become CALM Convenor in New Zealand. There are now 161 164 governments
that have signed the treaty.
Nitrogen and explosives
Many explosives require concentrated acids, particulary nitric
acid, to create them. Nitric acid is particularly useful for
making explosives because of what it can do with nitrogen atoms,
basically setting them up to form nitrogen gas with the right trigger.
Almost all explosives have nitrogen in them, making use of the large
amount of energy released by the formation of N2 gas (triple
bond, remember). The formation of each molecule of N2 releases
about 3.4 times the amount of energy that the formation of a single water
molecule, H2O, does from hydrogen and oxygen gases.
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TNT molecule
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Some explosive examples:
- Black
powder is 75% potassium nitrate (KNO3, or saltpetre).
- Nitroglycerin
(C3H5N3O9, or propane-1,2,3-triyl
trinitrate, called glyceryl trinitrate when used in medicine).
- TNT, trinitrotoluene
(C7H5N3O6, or methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene).
Wikipedia makes these comments about TNT:
TNT was first synthesised by Joseph Wilbrand in the year 1863, and
the first large-scale production began in Germany in 1891.
...
TNT is quite toxic. It can also be absorbed through the skin, and
will cause irritation and bright yellow staining. During the First World
War, munition workers who handled the chemical found that their skin
turned bright yellow, which led to the nickname "canary girls"
or simply "canaries" to describe such workers. TNT would also
eventually make ginger hair turn green. ... Consumption of TNT produces
black urine.
...
TNT was first made in 1863 by a German chemist Joseph Wilbrand,
but its potential was not seen for several years, mainly because it
was so hard to detonate and because it was less powerful than other
explosives. Among its advantages, however, is its ability to be safely
melted using steam or hot water, and so can be poured molten into shell
cases. ... It is also so insensitive that, for example, in 1910 it was
exempted from the UK's Explosives Act 1875, i.e. not actually being
considered an explosive for the purposes of manufacture and storage.
Advanced – TNT equivalent
The energy released by an explosive, asteroid impact, or earthquake
is described by its TNT
equivalent - the amount of TNT required to release the same
amount of energy. For nuclear weapons this is expressed in kilotons
or megatons. The most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated was the
Tsar Bomba which was 57 megatons (30 October 1961 - USSR). The 2004
Indian Ocean earthquake (which caused widespread tsunamis) released
the equivalent energy of 100 gigatons of TNT. Whatever caused the
Chicxulub crater in Mexico may have released the equivalent of as
much as 190,000 gigatons of TNT.
| Bomb Name |
Location |
Date |
Type |
Yield |
Notes |
| Little Boy |
Hiroshima, Japan |
6 August 1945 |
fission |
12-18 kT |
First of two nuclear weapons in war.
Only 1.38% of its material fissioned. |
| Fat Man |
Nagasaki, Japan |
9 August 1945 |
fission |
18-23 kT |
Second of two nuclear weapons in war.
The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 °C and
winds that were estimated to be over 1,000 km/h. |
| Castle Bravo |
Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands |
1 March 1954 |
fission & fusion |
15,000 kT
(15 MT) |
First practical deliverable fusion bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
Fifth largest nuclear explosion in history.
The resulting explosion far exceeded the expected yield of
4 to 6 megatons, which contributed to the most significant
accidental radiological contamination ever caused by the United
States. [How can this be said to be "accidental"? They set it off deliberately. It's a little like only convicting someone (in NZ) of manslaughter simply because the killer actually intended to murder someone else.] However it should be remembered that 10 megatons of
the total 15 megaton yield were from fissioning of the natural
uranium tamper, not from fusion of the secondary fuels.
In terms of TNT tonnage equivalence, Castle Bravo was 1,000 to 1,200
times more powerful than the atomic bombs which were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. |
| Tsar Bomba |
Novaya Zemlya, USSR |
31 October 1961 |
fission & fusion |
50,000-57,000 kT
(57 MT) |
Largest thermonuclear weapon ever tested, scaled down from
its initial 100 MT design by 50% |
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Ammonium
nitrate (NH4NO3) is a high nitrogen fertiliser
and often used for explosives, mixed with diesel or kerosene. This sort
of explosive is sometimes called ANFO, for ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.
TNT is mixed with ammonium nitrate to make an explosive called amatol.
Ammonium nitrate is also an explosive by itself, not needing any outside
fuel, and is used in instant cold packs, since mixing it with water draws
in heat instead of giving off heat. It's also used to make nitrous oxide
(N2O, laughing gas).
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