If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #690
Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616
What would the purpose of a thermite "booster" be? I would think a faster reaction and more energy released. According to wikipedia, military thermite mixtures, such as the kind you might find in thermite grenades or bombs, have a few other ingredients.
The one that stands out most is barium nitrate, which acts as a booster and lowers the ignition temp, which is critical for practical thermite use.
A chlorate booster sounds impractical at best, if not dangerous. As ramses implied, KClO3 and aluminum make a flash powder that is sensitive to friction, shock, and a number of impurities including sulfur and acids. While I don't doubt it could hasten the thermite reaction in some way, there seem to be better ways to do this that are already established.
I would much rather see perchlorate used as a booster, but god knows what would happen there as perchlorate+AL makes a much more powerful flash powder, albeit less sensitive.
Registered Member #1208
Joined: Thu Jan 03 2008, 05:30PM
Location: Chesterland, OH
Posts: 154
I think uber sensitive covers all of those sensitivities. and i don't think perchlorate isn't more powerful, it just has 1 more Oxygen for the same NaCl. even if it is more powerful, not by much.
Banned on 02/27/2008 Registered Member #1326
Joined: Sun Feb 17 2008, 11:19PM
Location:
Posts: 49
Let me tell you, industries use tons of thermite for production daily and big charges.
Shaun wrote ...
What would the purpose of a thermite "booster" be? I would think a faster reaction and more energy released. According to wikipedia, military thermite mixtures, such as the kind you might find in thermite grenades or bombs, have a few other ingredients.
Thermate mainly had sulfur in addition to thermite and thus cuts iron very fast via formation of the eutectic and used in thermate cutter charges. But that is not what we want.
Shaun wrote ...
The one that stands out most is barium nitrate, which acts as a booster and lowers the ignition temp, which is critical for practical thermite use.
The military applications probably need the Ba(NO3)2 but this is not what we want. At best it is used for ignition. I am still not clear why the cation Ba is special. Its v poisonous and difficult to procure. I would want to use a benign nitrate. Its only at the starting tip.
Shaun wrote ...
A chlorate booster sounds impractical at best, if not dangerous. As ramses implied, KClO3 and aluminum make a flash powder that is sensitive to friction, shock, and a number of impurities including sulfur and acids. While I don't doubt it could hasten the thermite reaction in some way, there seem to be better ways to do this that are already established.
I would much rather see perchlorate used as a booster, but god knows what would happen there as perchlorate+AL makes a much more powerful flash powder, albeit less sensitive.
Again, Let me tell you, industries use tons of thermite for production daily and big charges and the boosters. This means our knowledge is incomplete and we are just guessing. I have already said, those who have library accesses should try to get and share the docs and we can all study together. I would do it if my public library had any of this. They dont even have JACS. All they have are adult or children's books.
They dont deem the public to be deserving to read JACS.
On the other hand, the moscow public library has miles of shelves of books.
The criminals in the govt and their cronies in the industry are stealing our tax payer money like that MEGA SCAM ENRON which is only TIP OF THE ICEBERG and giving it to HALLIBURTON AND DEFENSE industries. Massive inflation is eating away everything.
And what is this "uber sesnsitive" ?
Does anyone have a writeup of the "current state of knowledge on thermite, empirical and theoretical" based on the work in this forum and its predicessor forum to share ? I am sure those who are doing it have done a study like this and can they generously share ? Successful Recipes, failed Recipes ... photos, videos but also of the grunt work and all steps, not just a show of the final result.
Lets brain-storm together and collect all the definitive knowledge into a single writeup.
Registered Member #193
Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:04AM
Location: sheffield
Posts: 1022
There's really quite alot of stuff on the web about thermite and boosted versions of it. As usual with the web, quite a lot of it is dross. Censorship certainly hasn't kept this stuff out of the public domain.
Here is the website for JACS As you can see, it covers some really obscure stuff; most people in the local library couldn't read the titles nevermind understand them. It would be a waste of the library's (and thereby the taxpayer's) money to subscribe to it. In any event, you won't see much there about thermite because the people who contribut to JACS grew out of that sort of thing ages ago.
If what you want to do is compile a list of experimental results from the inclusion of, for example, potassium chlorate, in thermite then go ahead. I will include the caveat that, if the stuff explodes, you might be in breach of the site rules. If you don't like those rules then I think your best bet is to set up your own website (good luck setting up one as successful as this). Ranting about politics has little to do with the basis of this site and nothing to do with chemistry. Accordingly, I'm sure we would prefer that you didn't do so. If you have any questions about actual chemistry feel free to ask them.
Banned on 02/27/2008 Registered Member #1326
Joined: Sun Feb 17 2008, 11:19PM
Location:
Posts: 49
Bored Chemist wrote ...
There's really quite alot of stuff on the web about thermite and boosted versions of it. As usual with the web, quite a lot of it is dross. Censorship certainly hasn't kept this stuff out of the public domain.
Here is the website for JACS As you can see, it covers some really obscure stuff; most people in the local library couldn't read the titles nevermind understand them. It would be a waste of the library's (and thereby the taxpayer's) money to subscribe to it. In any event, you won't see much there about thermite because the people who contribut to JACS grew out of that sort of thing ages ago.
If what you want to do is compile a list of experimental results from the inclusion of, for example, potassium chlorate, in thermite then go ahead. I will include the caveat that, if the stuff explodes, you might be in breach of the site rules. If you don't like those rules then I think your best bet is to set up your own website (good luck setting up one as successful as this). Ranting about politics has little to do with the basis of this site and nothing to do with chemistry. Accordingly, I'm sure we would prefer that you didn't do so. If you have any questions about actual chemistry feel free to ask them.
Zilch empirical or theoretical scientific info. JACS link trivial. third para full of ambiguities, threats of failure, devoid of any scientific info., indeed a high level spooky skill, but of no use in science. These spooks intend to create a knowledge apartheid, as if chemistry is of no use to common people.
you spent a lot of time crafting this ambiguous paranoia producing para. must have a lot of smoldering acid in you for this motivation.
If talking about rights of access to info is politics, then science begins with it.
Registered Member #33
Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 01:31PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 971
I have no idea either, but it looks like it has taken a political turn again. I don't see how this thread can result in anything positive for anyone, so I'll close it.
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
Chlorate boosters for thermite
