4 ms·

This is a very reasonable point, and even somewhat understated, since even when ignited hydrocarbon fuel burns more safely than ammonia. Nitrogenous compounds d

• mannykannot 6y ago
  Don't try this at home, but IIRC from my mis-spent youth you can light the ammonia gas in a half-empty bottle of household ammonia solution and it will burn off quietly. According to Wikipedia (which suggests that my memory may be faulty in this case): "The combustion of ammonia in air is very difficult in the absence of a catalyst (such as platinum gauze or warm chromium(III) oxide), due to the relatively low heat of combustion, a lower laminar burning velocity, high auto-ignition temperature, high heat of vaporization, and a narrow flammability range." Unlike nitrate compounds such as ammonium nitrate, ammonia contains no oxygen, and disassociates into hydrogen and nitrogen only.
  • staticautomatic 6y ago
    I recall in middle or high school making ammonium tri-iodide with a friend whose dad was a navy seal and knew a thing or two about explosives but nevertheless for some reason thought it was ok for us to make a highly touch-sensitive explosive without supervision. We got the instructions from some variant of the Anarchist Cookbook, and they quite simply instruct you to dissolve iodine crystals in ammonia and filter it, leaving behind a residue of the product. We left it inside a plastic cooler outside for the ammonia to evaporate, which was fine until a gust of wind caused it to detonate and blow up the cooler. I don’t recall us having a plan for how to get the filter out of the cooler without detonating it though, so I’m grateful that it blew up when we weren’t nearby.