4 ms·

What was that red material?

detritus 6y ago
This is what I've been trying to work out, but am having problems Googling for suggestions. The only things I've in the past read as causing red smoke are highly carcinogenic/toxic hypergolic rocket fuels (hydrazine?), but I'm having a hard time imagining anyone storing a cache of that sort of thing anywhere near a built-up area. The form of the explosion here points in my mind to something significantly more explosive than fireworks (fireworks result in white smoke too, no?) - if nitrates are involved, that might certainly point in a better direction.
- wintorez 6y ago
  The large explosion looked Thermobaric to me, which is not surprising since there were storing fuel there as well. I have a hunch that the red material could be some kind of grains, or construction material stored there as well.
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  The red material is almost certainly nitrogen dioxide, which is characteristic of spontaneous decomposition of nitrates. It is often associated with runaway exothermic reactions in nitrate chemistry and is generally a Bad Thing. Whatever reaction caused the spontaneous decomposition of nitrates was probably the catalyst for the much larger secondary explosion.
- wiml 6y ago
  I've read a number of reports saying that there was a large amount of sodium nitrate stored at the port (some sources say ammonium nitrate).
  - detritus 6y ago
    Just read this too, and it's looking like it's just under three times what Timothy McVeigh unleashed in Oklahoma City. This kind of unnerves me a little. Seemingly, a couple of tons of this not-entirely-impossible-to-get-ahold-of-chemical could seriously screw up national infrastructure. We've had decades of fairly organised terrorism here in the UK, so perhaps I should know better, but it's a bit of a shock to realise that a 'manageable' quantity of otherwise fairly standard chemical stock is capable of producing something as dramatic as this.
    - wintorez 6y ago
      Isn't the sale of nitrates highly regulated in most countries?
      - detritus 6y ago
        Most, yes, but then I'm unsure how complex it'd be for a well off and invested actor to play a 'shell game' with a few containers and get one of them filled with nasties into a major metropolis after a circuitous route. The nitrates in question here apparently ended up in Lebanon after coming from Brazil via Mozambique.
- KMag 6y ago
  The orange from hypergolic propellants is the oxidizer (nitrogen dioxide from the dinitrogen tetroxide disassociating at atmospheric pressure and temperature), not the fuel (typically hydrazine/UDMH these days, formerly analine was popular, many other fuels are hypergolic with N02/N204). If the reports are correct that the explosion is 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, the orange is probably nitrogen dioxide. A high concentration of nitrogen dioxide indicates that the explosion was very oxygen-rich, likely pointing to it being accidental. Ammonium nitrate is normally very very stable. Even mixed optimally with fuel oil, ammonium nitrate prills (pellets) won't reliably detonate with a No. 8 blasting cap, and in mining a small "booster" charge of TNT is used to get the ANFO going. However, very large piles of ammonium nitrate have caught fire and exploded, such as the Texas City disaster where a tanker full of ammonium nitrate burned for a long time, and then levelled a good portion of the town when it exploded.

This is what I've been trying to work out, but am having problems Googling for suggestions. The only things I've in the past read as causing red smoke are highly carcinogenic/toxic hypergolic rocket fuels (hydrazine?), but I'm having a hard time imagining anyone storing a cache of that sort of thing anywhere near a built-up area. The form of the explosion here points in my mind to something significantly more explosive than fireworks (fireworks result in white smoke too, no?) - if nitrates are involved, that might certainly point in a better direction.

wintorez 6y ago
The large explosion looked Thermobaric to me, which is not surprising since there were storing fuel there as well. I have a hunch that the red material could be some kind of grains, or construction material stored there as well.
jandrewrogers 6y ago
The red material is almost certainly nitrogen dioxide, which is characteristic of spontaneous decomposition of nitrates. It is often associated with runaway exothermic reactions in nitrate chemistry and is generally a Bad Thing. Whatever reaction caused the spontaneous decomposition of nitrates was probably the catalyst for the much larger secondary explosion.
wiml 6y ago
I've read a number of reports saying that there was a large amount of sodium nitrate stored at the port (some sources say ammonium nitrate).
- detritus 6y ago
  Just read this too, and it's looking like it's just under three times what Timothy McVeigh unleashed in Oklahoma City. This kind of unnerves me a little. Seemingly, a couple of tons of this not-entirely-impossible-to-get-ahold-of-chemical could seriously screw up national infrastructure. We've had decades of fairly organised terrorism here in the UK, so perhaps I should know better, but it's a bit of a shock to realise that a 'manageable' quantity of otherwise fairly standard chemical stock is capable of producing something as dramatic as this.
  - wintorez 6y ago
    Isn't the sale of nitrates highly regulated in most countries?
    - detritus 6y ago
      Most, yes, but then I'm unsure how complex it'd be for a well off and invested actor to play a 'shell game' with a few containers and get one of them filled with nasties into a major metropolis after a circuitous route. The nitrates in question here apparently ended up in Lebanon after coming from Brazil via Mozambique.
KMag 6y ago
The orange from hypergolic propellants is the oxidizer (nitrogen dioxide from the dinitrogen tetroxide disassociating at atmospheric pressure and temperature), not the fuel (typically hydrazine/UDMH these days, formerly analine was popular, many other fuels are hypergolic with N02/N204). If the reports are correct that the explosion is 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, the orange is probably nitrogen dioxide. A high concentration of nitrogen dioxide indicates that the explosion was very oxygen-rich, likely pointing to it being accidental. Ammonium nitrate is normally very very stable. Even mixed optimally with fuel oil, ammonium nitrate prills (pellets) won't reliably detonate with a No. 8 blasting cap, and in mining a small "booster" charge of TNT is used to get the ANFO going. However, very large piles of ammonium nitrate have caught fire and exploded, such as the Texas City disaster where a tanker full of ammonium nitrate burned for a long time, and then levelled a good portion of the town when it exploded.