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1. Dr David Mills (dtl@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:16 JST Dr David Mills

   Youtube just suggested to me a video of someone making acetone peroxide "Mother of Satan" explosive. They start with a Litre of Peroxide and scale from there.

   I'm amazed they survived to upload the video.

   That's so fucking dangerous.

   • Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:12 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     in reply to

     • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
     • szakib
     • furranium

     @gsuberland @szakib @Dtl @funranium Does that say 1969 on it???

     /Me ducks behind nearest concrete structure

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:13 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     • Andrew Zonenberg
     • szakib
     • furranium

     @azonenberg @szakib @Dtl you have just reminded me of @funranium's encounter with a 4L bottle of picric acid.

     https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2016/05/im-not-allowed-four-day-weekends/

   • Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:14 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     in reply to

     • szakib

     @szakib @Dtl TATP is an infamously sensitive primary explosive, to the point that it can go off on its own from random vibrations and such.

     Terrorists call it "mother of satan" because it's a great way to end up in whatever afterlife you believe in before you've reached your target or even fully assembled your IED.

   • Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:14 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     in reply to

     • szakib

     @szakib @Dtl Organic peroxides in general are easy to make, highly sensitive primary explosives.

     A bit too easy, to the point that every once in a while you hear about accidents in a lab from a particularly unstable solvent (diethyl ether comes to mind) oxidizing spontaneously in storage then going boom when heated during a distillation, left in storage and crystallized in bottle cap threads, etc.

     This is why the most peroxide-prone solvents are often mixed with various stabilizers to reduce the rate of peroxide formation, and labs will buy small containers (so they don't sit around too long) and mark the bottle with the date they were opened and periodically test peroxide levels. This way they can be discarded before dangerous concentrations build up.

   • Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:15 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     in reply to

     • szakib

     @szakib @Dtl A primary is one that can be easily set off by mechanical impact, heat, etc. These are inherently much more dangerous to handle for obvious reasons.

     A secondary is one that is sufficiently insensitive that it is difficult or impossible to make it go boom without something else exploding next to it to provide simultaneous high heat and pressure from the shock wave. These are relatively safe to handle - some of them can even be ignited with a match and will burn vigorously but not detonate - but can't be used on their own because you can't set them off directly.

     Most real world blasting and munitions use a small charge of primary explosive in a blasting cap or similar to then set off the main charge of secondary. Sometimes, for a particularly insensitive main charge, you might even have a "booster" of intermediate sensitivity between the two.

     The idea is that the main charge can be handled in near complete safety until you insert the detonator, and a mishandling of just the detonator might lead to a blown eardrum or loss of a finger or something but won't leave a giant crater The mating of the two is the riskiest part of the operation as a screwup there could set off the main charge, but this is a short window of time which can be performed with the utmost care.

   • Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:16 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     in reply to

     @Dtl A *liter*???

     That has to be one of the dumbest ideas out there. There are so many more stable secondary explosives out there if you really want to mess around with energetics. There is no reason whatsoever to make primary explosives - especially ones that sensitive - in such quantity.

   • szakib (szakib@freeradical.zone)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:16 JST szakib

     in reply to

     • Andrew Zonenberg

     @azonenberg @Dtl Can I have a noob question? What's the diff between a "secondary" and a "primary" explosive?

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 09:03:50 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     • Andrew Zonenberg
     • szakib
     • furranium

     @azonenberg @szakib @Dtl @funranium oh it gets worse