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What are fertilizer bombs made out of?
Ammonium nitrate, which is used in fertilizers and bomb making, is a salt made from ammonium and nitric acid, and it is highly explosive. The more ammonium nitrate, or NH4-NO3, the bigger its explosive capacity.
What is the most notorious fertilizer bomb ever detonated?
On April 19, 1995, the two-year anniversary of the disastrous end to the Waco standoff, McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck loaded with a diesel-fuel-fertilizer bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and fled. Minutes later, the massive bomb exploded, killing 168 people.
Can fertilizer explode by itself?
Once ammonium nitrate reaches 210 degrees Celsius, it starts to melt, quickly producing a bunch of gases, mainly nitrous oxide, water vapor and nitrogen gas. If those gases can’t escape, temperatures go up and the reaction gets faster and faster. Now this on its own could lead to an explosion.
What kind of fertilizer explodes?
Ammonium nitrate is used in fertilizer and in the mining industry as an explosive to blast rock and move mounds of earth.
Why is fertilizer used?
Fertilizers are added to crops in order to produce enough food to feed the human population. Fertilizers provide crops with nutrients like potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen, which allow crops to grow bigger, faster, and to produce more food. However, plants and animals cannot use the nitrogen gas in the air.
How do explosives work?
A general theory of explosives is that the detonation of the explosives charge causes a high-velocity shock wave and a tremendous release of gas. The shock wave cracks and crushes the rock near the explosives and creates thousands of cracks in the rock. These cracks are then filled with the expanding gases.
Are fertilizers flammable?
Commercial fertilizer typically contains ammonium nitrate, a compound that helps absorb moisture from the atmosphere. While it remains solid at room temperature, it can become extremely volatile if ignited or even heated, causing explosions or fires.
How powerful are fertilizer bombs?
The combination of unstable nitrogen bonds in the fertilizer, plus heat from the fire, resulted in an explosion as powerful as a 2.1 magnitude earthquake.
Why does fertilizer sometimes explode?
The explosive force occurs when solid ammonium nitrate decomposes very rapidly into two gases, nitrous oxide and water vapor. When the chemical exploded, it caused a blast powerful enough to knock people to the ground in Galveston, Texas, 10 miles (16 kilometers) away.
How do fertilizers help farmers?
Fertilizers replace the nutrients that crops remove from the soil. Without the addition of fertilizers, crop yields and agricultural productivity would be significantly reduced. That’s why mineral fertilizers are used to supplement the soil’s nutrient stocks with minerals that can be quickly absorbed and used by crops.
Is it possible to make a bomb with fertilizer?
Experts say that it is actually quite difficult to make a bomb using fertilizer, because of the nature of the chemistry of the explosion. Ammonium nitrate is the fertilizer compound that can be used in explosives, said John Goodpaster, who researches explosives at Indiana at University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
What happens when you detonate fertilizer?
This detonation wave radiates outward from the detonator at a speed of about 2 to 3 miles per second through the mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel, Goodpaster said. The energy of the detonation wave causes the ammonium nitrate in the fertilizer to vaporize – the solid fertilizer becomes a gas in an instant.
Which fertilizers are used in explosives?
Ammonium nitrate is the fertilizer compound that can be used in explosives, said John Goodpaster, who researches explosives at Indiana at University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
How do you make a bottle of fertilizer explode?
This is highly explosive and lethal, mix ammonium-nitrate-based fertilizer with gasoline. Just stuff the bottle with this mixture and light the fucker. This method should be made with a plastic bottle so that it will not break on impact. When you light it, the bottle will quickly explode so be quick.