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Sandia Labs Researcher Develops Fertilizer Without the Explosive Potential
cylonlover writes "Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer, but when mixed with a fuel such as diesel, it makes a powerful explosive – as seen in last week's fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. But it's the deliberate use of the compound in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and acts of terror such as the Oklahoma City bombing that gives rise to even greater cause for concern. This is why Kevin Fleming, an optical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, developed a fertilizer alternative that isn't detonable and therefore can't be used in a bomb."
There are way too many things you can fashion into explosives. For example, chicken manure has enough nitrates in it you can use it as a replacement for ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate / Fuel Oil.) Knowing our government however, they would use this as an excuse to genetically engineer chickens with lower nitrate poop then try to ban all other varieties.
There's just too much fertilizer being dumped on plants, with the added benefit of the pesticides that go along with it.
The explosion at the Texas plant was not from mixing Ammonium Nitrate with Diesel fuel.
Get your heads out of your asses, you fucking idiots.
I'm developing some right now. It involves this morning's sesame seed bagel with cream cheese.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I call bullshit! (Literally. Unless you want to be really nasty, that is.)
Ezekiel 23:20
... as if you needed me to tell you that. It's not as though basic chemistry is incomprehensible to evil people. I'm pretty sure they can figure out how to purify the ammonium nitrate.
Of course, if this prevents unintentional fertilizer explosions, it's still worth something, but I am skeptical.
"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
1. Ammonium nitrate can be synthesized with Nitric acid and Ammonia. Are these that hard to come by in Afghanistan or Pakistan? 2. Purification would probably just require you finding something that is soluble with Ammonium Nitrate and not Iron Sulfate, or vice versa. Maybe that would be harder than I'm thinking it would be. Maybe some other method would be possible (magnetic?). 3. Any long term environmental consequences to building up Iron compounds in soils over generations of use? Is there an ecologist or an agronomist in the house?
At first glace I read his name as Kevin Flaming, which would've been somewhat fitting. Then I realized my mistake when I read about the non-explosive nature of the fertilizer. Then I realized another mistake in that I should be utilizing my optical enhancers to avoid the aforementioned mistake to begin with.
According to the article it acidifies soils which the author finds good for areas with alkaline soils. And he says that some areas of Afghanistan have alkaline soils. Fine, but unless Afghanistan is unlike the rest of the world, some areas will have alkaline soils and some have acidic soils. I happen to have acidic soils on my farm and would never use a fertilizer that would further decrease the pH. We have plenty of iron in the soils here already too.
The cost increase may be low, but they cannot argue that with the added materials and logistics, the cost will be the same in places that already have ammonium nitrate fertilizers in use. Perhaps where their crony governments force farmers to buy calcium carbonate fertilizer it would be cost neutral.
But until hunger is eliminated in the world and all the world has healthy food to eat, governments have no business increasing the cost of food. Far more than 180 have died due to malnutrition since the Murrah building. Governments could trying sticking to courts, police and defense if they want to minimize the incidence of terrorism. And maybe help out with world hunger if they just can't stand sitting on their hands.
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When you rupture a vessel containing a liquid under pressure, the liquid "flashes" into vapor driving an explosion, the power of which is enhanced by the conflagration of the ammonia when it meets air.
BLEV's were the mechanism behind boiler explosions involving incombustible H2O back in the day of steam locomotives (and in this day with accidents with antique steam tractors). You can also get BLEVs with propane or other hydrocarbon liquids. There was some recent controversy about Google Page Rank, where a search for some campground in Spain turns up a horrific disaster where a BLEV from a badly maintained tanker truck taking a shortcut over back roads to avoid tolls blew up.
I fully expect someone on the TV news to make such a mistake, but to conflate West, Texas with the explosive properties of the ANFO mix, yes, some heads need to be removed from back sides, and some persons of limited intellect need to stop procreating. Is there anyway to remove this thread from Slashdot so we don't look like people who should be prevented from reproducing?
the problem is that millions of pounds (if not tons) of AN is made each year for fertilizer and explosives use. Do you want to set up two sets of manufacturing plants so that the explosives grade stuff doesn't get contaminated with the iron compounds? And it's not like AN is unique. There's lots of things that can be used as an explosive in an IED. AN gets used because it's cheap. $20/50 pound sack (600-700/ton, last time I checked).
Everything useful has other uses. Anhydrous ammonia is a great fertilizer.. inject it into the soil and the soil moisture picks it up. But it's also used to synthesize methamphetamine. Sulfuric and Nitric acids have so many uses it's hard to imagine them all, and sure, you can make explosives. What about acetone and hydrogen peroxide: both have lots of uses, but can be used to make TATP of "no more than 100 ml liquid" fame.
Why would I buy this stuff?
Right now you can buy Amonium Nitrate that gives you a ton of readily available nitrogen for your crops at a relatively small cost.
And, in case I need it, I can build a bomb with the stuff, too.
I don't often need to build an IED, but whether it's a stump in your field or a neighbor messing with you or the damn federals raiding your moonshine still, sometimes you need to blow something up. With amonium nitrate, I don't have to buy and store expensive and potentially dangerous explosives just on the off chance I need to blow something sky high.
But this new no-go-boom-fertilizer just takes away the features I'm used to getting for free with my fertilizer. It's like DRM for ag chemicals.
Did you read the summary? First line: "Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer, but when mixed with a fuel such as diesel, it makes a powerful explosive – as seen in last week's fertilizer plant explosion in Texas." Your parent points out that the explosion in Texas does not demonstrate that it makes a powerful explosive when mixed with diesel. The explosion in Texas demonstrated that it's pretty explosive all on its own.
The interesting thing is that this heightened interest in ANFO seems to have been caused by two explosions that did not involve ANFO. The explosion in Texas was straight AN. The explosions at the Boston Marathon were powered by gunpowder. It's possible that the next explosion could be caused by ANFO, but that's not the current problem.
The big issue here is that we could stop treating farmers buying fertilizer as potential terrorists. They could buy all of this new fertilizer that they wanted without triggering terror checks. That doesn't really make us safer (the current system seems to be successful at preventing ANFO's use in terrorism), but it would make farmers' lives easier. Frankly, I think that that would be a good thing.
When only terrorists can buy fertilizer they've won.
Look st the post-explosion photos and you'll see that the anhydrous ammonia tanks are all intact. They're hard to miss - they're virtually the only thing left standing. BLEVE explosions obliterate the tanks they occur in and throw massive amounts of shrapnel.
Sorry, chief. It was an ammonium nitrate explosion. It was not a BLEVE (note the correct spelling.)
Please help metamoderate.
For most people to secure alternate sources of ammonium nitrate. And only slightly longer for the black SUV's to show up if you try and purchase more than a cupfull of the raw material.
As usual, farmers wont go for this and others can make their own.
But wont do a damned thing for your crops either.
Reminds me of that orange scented modeling "glue" back in the 80's.. sure you couldn't sniff it but it didn't hold 2 pieces of plastic together to save your life.
But it's the deliberate use of the compound in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and acts of terror such as the Oklahoma City bombing that gives rise to even greater cause for concern.
Why? If the number of people dying from industrial accidents is greater than the number dying from terrorism, shouldn't we be focusing on the greater threat to human life? Particularly given that the explosion in Texas looks like it was caused, at least in part, by lax regulatory compliance.
The only reason I can see for terrorism being worse is that it terrifies us. But the rational solution for that is, colloquially, to grow a pair. Stop saying things like "terrorism is a greater cause for concern" when it is not. Be rational, and help the public to be rational -- stop adding to the emotionalistic, irrational fear of terrorism.
The reason-for-being of terrorism is asymmetric warfare. That only works if a society offers the asymmetric, panicky response that terrorism is meant to induce. Stop contributing to that by claiming that a statistically smaller threat is a greater concern.
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Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective if there were enough enforcement of the laws so that a facility with a permit to hold ONE ton of fertiliser could not hold FORTY tons?
That would have reduced the explosion to 2.5% of the strength at a stroke.
There was a huge explosion back in 1917: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
That actually started the trend of mining use of ANFO as a safe explosive.
The chemical companies do not just make Ammonia Nitrate for fertilizer _ALONE_, as there are other industrial uses for the chemical. So your comment would only apply to Fertilizer plants alone.
This is a knee jerk reaction and not something new. If there were a safe way to handle _OTHER_ industrial uses for the chemical, they would have done so in the 90+ years of know the explosive properties.
I've heard it said that one of the biggest reasons why we've tolerated opium poppy cultivation so much over the years is that if we ever managed to crack down hard on it, the growers would switch to other poppy species and the clandestine chemists would figure out economical ways of creating Bentley compounds from them. Apparently, this class of opiates is incredibly potent (Russia used one of these to gas that one theater held hostage), incredibly cost effective and even more addictive than heroin.
I'm wondering if there isn't a similar sort of danger here. If we manage to make it difficult or impossible to obtain traditional high explosives, what if terrorists and rebels everywhere begin to seriously tinker with thermobaric weapons? In principle, they are incredibly simple. A combustable substance is heated in an airtight container well above its autoignition point, then a small low-explosive charge (gunpowder, etc.) is detonated to scatter it. Getting it to detonate (instead of deflagrate) can be tricky, but there are so many different detonation-capable mixtures out there what if one of them is easy to achieve using nothing but gasoline or alcohol or hydrogen? Or steel or aluminum dust? Even a botched (deflagrating) bomb could have devestating effects, especially indoors where the fireball will effortlessly travel around corners.
So I'm not quite sure an ammonium nitrate replacement would be such a good thing.
Ehm, think I'll post this AC...
No more terrorism!
Although iron is typically deficient in soils and adding iron promotes growth, is the amount required to make a high nitrate fertilizer difficult to explode going to poison the soil over a period of several years? Will it make the iron content of foods too high? I don't know. Is there some agricultural expert here that can illuminate the subject?
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Ultimately, the question I pose is this: Is this fertilizer going to be worth all the trouble to make, distribute, use and clean up after? Another series of questions I have is; What kind of affect does this new product have on the nutrient value(s) of the crop it's used on? Are there any potential Health Hazards? Is it Toxic, or produce toxic effects, directly in the food, or indirectly, in the soil it's used on? After the side effects of genetically engineering Corn and Wheat and the now rampant intolerance to these two products, what is next? Maybe it's time to just get away from fossil fuels, like we've been pushing for for such a long time. After all, there seems to be a lot of uses for them in the bomb-making field, anyway. Determined terrorists will always find Something they can use to cause mayhem. I'm surprised there aren't better ways to 'sniff out' fertilizer-and-fuel based bombs already.
While making it harder for terrorists is nice, it might actually increase the rate of accidental fertilizer plant explosions.
See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion for an example what happens if people think their fertilizer cannot explode so the easiest way to get some stuck in a silo out is a little charge of dynamite.
"unless you live in Texas in which case be sure to live far away from fertilizer plants and cargo ships. "
i'm no chemist, but isn't ammonia in cleaning products? or is the ammonia in fertilizer different from the liquid in the cleaning fluid? why would you put a cleaning fluid on your grass and flowers? just asking.
...that the fertilizer in Texas was mixed with diesel fuel.
And of course there is the oklahoma city bombing which is often cited as an example of ANFO; the actual bomb was ANNM.
Looking at this page I see that you could dissolve NH4NO3/FeSO4 mixture and add lead(II) citrate, which should cause the Fe to precipitate as citrate and the SO4 to precipitate with the lead, leaving NH4NO3 solution behind which can be dried and used in a bomb.
Practical problems abound - most notably, can you get lead citrate, and can you find a way to reuse it? However, I have only high school chemistry and it is unlikely that I found the optimal 'cleaning' reaction in a few minutes of web searching. Can anyone with more chemistry than me comment on whether there are practical ways for a mad bomber to separate out the NH4NO3?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Yes i recall my high school chemistry teacher telling us about the dangers of ammonia based compounds how a farmer tried to remove an old pile of fertilizer with a 1/4 stick of dynamite and flattened his farm.
Ask a mining engineer what could be substituted for ANFO, and the cost.
They could buy all of this new fertilizer that they wanted without triggering terror checks. That doesn't really make us safer (the current system seems to be successful at preventing ANFO's use in terrorism), but it would make farmers' lives easier. Frankly, I think that that would be a good thing.
Or they could stop treating farmers like terrorists in the first place and just stop doing the background checks.
I know you are being sarcastic but you are an idiot if you think the two arguments are similar.
Non-explosive fertilizer cast as useless? I beg to differ. But to make it have a better sounding headline, try this one:
Sandia Labs develops organic compost pile for only $720,000 per pound.
There! Now you can see how commercial opportunities abound and will help our economy, especially if Haliburton gets a contract to provide automatic compost bins to military mess halls everywhere. (And yes, I expect my thinly veiled reference to Haliburton to push my moderation up to +5)
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Yes of course it's ridiculous to expect you can eliminate the ability of people to turn fertilizer into bombs. No matter what security types want, the chemistry here is real simple -- you don't get nitrogen fertilizer without nitrate and ammonia, and without nitrogen fertilizer lots more people are going to starve. This is especially true in places like south Asia.
But making it just a little more difficult to make a bomb with will go a long way in places like AF-PAK. Not only are people there less capable of performing whatever filtration/synthesis/whatever is needed to get back to boom, they've got to perform that procedure on literally tons of material.
If someone is looking to do Boston Marathon levels of carnage, they'll get the explosives. You can start by collecting your own piss and evaporating it to get the nitrates you need. It'll take awhile but you'll get there. You won't run a regional insurgency by filtering dried pee to make IEDs.
Invest in any additional research that may be needed
to [further] prove the safety & efficacy of Thorium-based
reactors (a.k.a. "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors"
or LFTRs), per Kirk Sorensen's 10-min TED-talk.
They seem to be safer than the high-pressure reactors
we use today... and they don't need or produce Plutonium.
We'll also need changes to nuclear reactor regulations,
to make it easier to build lots of small ones, closer to
where the energy (heat &/or electricity) is needed.
To accuse one someone of using a "just following orders" defense has some very specific connotations, and it's total bullshit for you to employ those in this context -- and it's chickenshit to use the connotation without being willing to own up to the full Goodwin your comment implies.
The actual comment was "that's not my decision," which suggests something between total ignorance (unlikely) to fervent support (does anyone have that for Af-Pak at this point?) to anything up to and including 'This was the worst military decision since Agincourt, but I don't find it morally repugnant enough to betray my duty.' What it probably meant was that it's irrelevant for this discussion. Damn, man, I'm a lefty pinko hippie and even I think you're being a jerk.
The NRA will move from guns to demanding they don't switch to this new fertilizer.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I can see the cleanup effort required to clean up all the lead sulfate of clandestine disposal activity.
"Bultaco"
"No, I swear it's true!"
ask anybody in The Biz anything with a buncha nitrogen tends to be a bit "frisky"
for example
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/01/09/things_i_wont_work_with_azidoazide_azides_more_or_less.php
is a compound that will go BOOM if you so much as look at it cross-eyed
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Coming soon, the Freedom of Exploding Fertilizer Choice Act, from your local republican.