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The cause of the explosion was the ignition of ammonium nitrate used as raw material for fertilizer and explosives. Australia Taroom, Queensland August 30, 1972: 3 12 In the 1972 Taroom explosion, a truck carrying 12 tons of ammonium nitrate experienced an electrical fault and caught fire north of Taroom, Queensland. After the driver stopped ...
The 1924 Nixon Nitration Works disaster was an explosion and fire that claimed many lives and destroyed several square miles of New Jersey factories. [1] It began on March 1, 1924, about 11:15 a.m., when an explosion destroyed a building in Nixon, New Jersey (an area within present-day Edison, New Jersey) used for processing ammonium nitrate. [2]
Grandcamp had a mixed cargo, containing chiefly ammonium nitrate, but also twine, peanuts, tobacco, some small arms ammunition, engineering equipment, and cotton. [2]: 1 The ammonium nitrate, needed either as fertilizer or an explosive, was manufactured in Nebraska and Iowa and shipped to Texas City by rail before being loaded onto Grandcamp. [4]
Fireworks and ammonium nitrate appear to have been the fuel that ignited a massive explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut, experts and videos of the blast suggest.
As ammonium nitrate is a salt, both the cation, NH + 4, and the anion, NO − 3, may take part in chemical reactions. Solid ammonium nitrate decomposes on heating. At temperatures below around 300 °C, the decomposition mainly produces nitrous oxide and water: NH 4 NO 3 → N 2 O + 2 H 2 O. At higher temperatures, the following reaction ...
The 1972 Taroom explosion occurred after a truck carrying ammonium nitrate, an explosive and fertilizer, caught fire on 30 August 1972 near Taroom, Central Queensland, Australia. The explosion, on the Fitzroy Developmental Road near Stonecroft Station , 90 kilometres north-west of Taroom, killed three men.
A fire department spokesman confirmed that firefighters had used water in combating the initial fire, which may have led to water being sprayed on calcium carbide, releasing the highly flammable gas acetylene. This would have provided the fuel source for reaction with the oxidizer, ammonium nitrate, thus triggering its detonation more readily. [46]
After weeks of investigation, the cause of the initial fire remained unknown; authorities ruled out weather, natural causes, anhydrous ammonia, and ammonium nitrate in a rail car as possible causes. [26] In May 2016, the ATF announced that they had determined the fire had been deliberately set. [1]