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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]
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 ...
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]
High-temperature flame with solid particles, which interfere with flame colorants. Reacts with nitrates, except ammonium nitrate, yielding nitrogen oxides, ammonia, and heat (the reaction is slow at room temperature but violent at above 80 °C and may spontaneously ignite); the reaction can be inhibited by a weak acid, e.g. boric acid. Corroded ...
The Port Neal fertilizer plant explosion occurred on December 13, 1994 in the ammonium nitrate plant at the Terra International, Inc., Port Neal Complex, 16 mi (26 km) south of Sioux City, Iowa, United States. [1] Four workers at the plant were killed by the explosion, and eighteen others were injured. [3]
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The ammonium nitrate functions as an oxidizer and the aluminium as fuel. The use of the relatively cheap ammonium nitrate and aluminium makes it a replacement for pure TNT. The mixture is affected by humidity because ammonium nitrate is highly hygroscopic. Ammonal's ease of detonation depends on fuel and oxidizer ratios, 95:5 ammonium nitrate ...