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DIY Explosives Experimenter Blows Self Up, Contaminates Building (fdlreporter.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader hey! writes:
Benjamin D. Morrison of Beaver Dam Wisconsin was killed on March 5 while synthesizing explosives in his apartment... The accident has left the apartment building so contaminated that it will be demolished in a controlled burn, and residents are not being allowed in to retrieve any of their belongings.
It was just five years ago that Morrison graduated from Pensacola Christian College in Florida with a degree in pre-pharmacy and minors in chemistry and math. Though a local reverend believes 28-year-old Morrison was "not a bomb maker," USA Today's site FDL Reporter notes that "Officials assume he was making bombs that accidentally exploded and killed him... They have not publicly disclosed what chemicals were in apartment 11 where Morrow lived, only describing them as 'extremely volatile and unstable explosives.'"
It was just five years ago that Morrison graduated from Pensacola Christian College in Florida with a degree in pre-pharmacy and minors in chemistry and math. Though a local reverend believes 28-year-old Morrison was "not a bomb maker," USA Today's site FDL Reporter notes that "Officials assume he was making bombs that accidentally exploded and killed him... They have not publicly disclosed what chemicals were in apartment 11 where Morrow lived, only describing them as 'extremely volatile and unstable explosives.'"
PETN is decently easy to make, if the drying is done wrong it is radically sensitized, and the precursors are easy to find.
Given the FBI's records for creating "bombers" and then busting them, I do wonder what the FBI's involvement was beforehand with this guy.
Reminds me of an old part of an old blog: Things I won't work with.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pi...
I'm guessing something with fluoride chemistry:
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pi...
It's a really fun read about a shockingly horrible bit of chemistry done by our military science.
How unstable can the remaining stuff be? I mean it obviously did not detonate when the fist blast went off.
My guess if the FBI is covering something up.
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My unbelievably excellent chemistry teacher in high school guaranteed at least one explosion per week in class. Kept our attention grinding through stoichiometry, with the side benefit that most of us went through AP chemistry the next year and got some cheap college credits. The last week he filled a huge balloon with a perfect mixture of oxygen and some exotic relative of pentane, detonated with a remote piezo device he concocted himself. The shockwave blew covers off of the fluorescent lights and rattled windows on the opposite side of the fairly good sized school building.
My AP chemistry teacher was a bit more pedestrian, but as a bonus for attending a study session on Saturday, he demonstrated thermite burning a hole through 1" thick plate steel.
Of course, nowadays this would be completely vorboten, and such activities would end you up on an FBI watchlist.
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He died dealing with volatile compounds, wether he was intentionally making explosives or not is unknown. The volatile state may have been an intermediate state of production, or may have been the result of an error during his process. It's not proven yet if explosive compounds were his intended end product.
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"Uhh, who here hasn't made explosives before?"
I was going to say the same thing. As a kid, we would make black powder from its base three ingredients - took awhile to learn the right proportions. Used extension cords to detonate out in the backyard. Today what was once considered a hands-on chemistry lesson would today get you thrown in jail.
I dug up a fire ant colony once when I was a kid. It's amazing, the Queen was almost 30 feet away from the mound. That pile of dirt is just that, where they put the dirt. I had a spray bottle of Chlordane that I had mixed up (instant death and now illegal) that I used to keep them from eating me up as I dug down the tunnels until I found the main nest. Interesting and informative. I discovered that when you pour poison on the mound they just dump the dirt somewhere else. The Queen never has to move. I use a bait now, it's pretty effective. I was the type of kid that was always wondering about things, nearly killed myself on multiple occasions.
You assume there is actually a need to burn the building to the ground and destroy the possessions of everyone who lives there. There is another theory: Massive government overreaction in the name of safety. The CYA school of law: Better to render a few dozen people destitute and homeless than call in a team of real experts for a risk assessment.
Honestly, since they are opting for a controlled burn, this seems the most likely situation--most of the things I know of that would render it unsafe due to contamination to even retrieve some personal possessions while not having taken the entire building out already would also render it distinctly unsafe to burn the place down. Either it's going to explode some more, or spread these mysterious toxins even more...
I wonder what would happen if somebody near the building took them to court, insisting on a proper environmental impact statement before the controlled burn is done?