3 ms·

Technically incorrect: ammonium nitrate on its own is not an explosive.

• jandrewrogers 4y ago
  Actually, it is you that are incorrect. Ammonium nitrate will detonate on its own, as will virtually all ammonium oxidizer salts. There was a spectacular existence proof of this in Beirut only two years ago. There are two reasons ammonium nitrate is often mixed with other chemicals as an explosive. First, improving stoichiometric efficiency since it is excessively oxygen-rich in detonation, usually by adding hydrocarbon (like ANFO) or metal fuels to consume the excess oxygen. Second, improving its detonation sensitivity, since it is extremely insensitive and tends not to detonate to completion except under the most controlled conditions, which is wasteful. In a professional composition, there are single common additives that can address both of these issues. If you are using a composition like ANFO that doesn't address the sensitivity issue, then you'll need strong boosters (like PETN) to achieve a good explosive yield. If you have ready access to strong boosters then ammonium nitrate is weak tea as an explosive. We use ammonium nitrate because it cheap, not because it is good, and part of that means wringing what efficiency can be cheaply obtained from it as an explosive.