posted on February 8, 2003 05:04:11 PM new
Just read a strange note through the Drudge Report. Seems somebody hijacked a truck load of Boric acid up in California and they are blathering about it being a chemical that can be used to make explosive.
Now I'm not a professional chemist - but I do have a fair working knowledge of chemistry and improvised munitions and know of no process that uses boric acid to produce an explosive.
Is this just a case of another liberal arts major that is too ignorant to think different acids have different properties? maybe they think ant acid is like Nitric acid? Or is there really some obscure reaction using Boric Acid?
Maybe they are going to smother innocent victems in great waves of ointment?
I've used it for soldering flux.....
posted on February 8, 2003 07:59:43 PM new
You're finally being honest bear, congratulations! After all, what's the point of going thru a big long thread trying to defend your position before you start name calling as a last resort? Might as well start right off casting aspersions...suggesting insecticide be used on those with whom you disagree...what grade did you say you were in?
posted on February 8, 2003 10:13:59 PM new
Gravid, you're completely right. According to it's MSDS there's little to be concerned with that relates to Boric Acid. A reactive with some metals would very slowly release hydrogen gas though, which is then an explosive. It's pretty absurd to think that anyone would go through all of that when hydrogen gas can be produced more easily by putting bleach into water (or water into bleach?), if I remember right.
posted on February 9, 2003 01:05:59 AM new
Bleach into water releases Chorine gas. Put Sodium into water and it violently combines with Oxygen and releases Hydrogen.
posted on February 9, 2003 02:40:27 AM new
Bear,
I saw the humor in your comment. It scares me when others lack the emotion to laugh. I've found that in good times and bad, life much better when you have people around you with a sense of humor.
Amen,
Reverend Colin
posted on February 9, 2003 03:05:14 AM new
From the UPI article:
Boric acid, the stolen cargo, is a colorless, odorless crystalline substance and is used in a number of industrial processes and products such as eye wash solution, flame retardants, insecticides and fertilizers, although it can also react violently with potassium, acid anhydrides and other chemicals.
posted on February 9, 2003 03:49:54 AM new
Duh. incorrect and already posted by gravid. Material Safety Data sheets are required to include reactivity and are the governmental equivelant to the data offered in a physician's desk reference for manufactured drugs.
posted on February 9, 2003 07:56:50 AM new
In that case a tanker full of water would be a big danger since it can react violently with potassium also.
That's as silly as saying a truck load of sand is dangerous because it can react violently if brought into sudden contact with a mass of nitroglycerine.
Somebody messed up.
posted on February 9, 2003 09:16:12 AM new
If worse comes to worse.....they could treat alot of cases of "pink-eye"
.................................................
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Firemen, Police.
We call them our heroes...but we pay them like chumps
[ edited by mlecher on Feb 9, 2003 09:21 AM ]
[ edited by mlecher on Feb 9, 2003 09:23 AM ]
posted on February 9, 2003 11:54:29 AM new
Let's see...I guess we'd better post guard units at every grain silo and in supermarkets in the US. Anyone buying more than a single bag of flour or single box of corn starch should be reported to the FBI immediately.
After all, grains, flour and corn starch can be highly explosive all by themselves.
"Flour and many other carbohydrates become explosive when they are hanging in the air as dust. It only takes 1 or 2 grams of dust per cubic foot of air (50 or so grams per cubic meter) for the mixture to be ignitable. Flour grains are so tiny that they burn instantly. When one grain burns, it lights other grains near it, and the flame front can flash through a dust cloud with explosive force. Just about any carbohydrate dust, including sugar, pudding mix, fine sawdust, etc., will explode once ignited.
When you hear about an explosion in a grain elevator on the news, this is what has occurred. A spark or a source of heat has ignited the dust in the air and it has exploded."
posted on February 9, 2003 12:09:12 PM new
Yeah USAToday picked up the story without verifying it. Shows how accurate our news sources are doesn't it?
Yeah you could make a pretty good air/fuel bomb by dispersing a mass of starch with an explosive charge and then igniting it. Boost it a little with butane or propane to make sure it ignites nice.
In a technological society there is no way to keep people from access to goods that can be turned lethal. Toilet cleaner and bleach will produce poison gas. Ammonia and tincure of iodine will produce a precipitate that is a terribly ubstable primary explosive when dried. It will spontaneously ignite from light or the slightest movement or pressure. All kinds of things like that out there like the ricin toxin from castor beans you can grow in your own back yard.
Most people are just too lazy or ignorant to make a really interesting custom weapon. They have to buy it ready made.
Of course if you are smart enough to make really terrible weapons you are often smart enough to know it really doesn't accomplish any useful social change to blow your enemies up. The Palestinians and Israelis have been doing it for awhile and look how much it has helped either of them. You'd have to actually wipe the other side out to the last man- and that's rather hard to do.
