All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Although many common chemicals potentially can be used to make explosives into terrorist bombs, ammonium nitrate is by far the most accessible ingredient.
It is produced in enormous quantities for fertilizer and for blasting agents used in mining and other industries. In the wake of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, the threat of terrorist attacks has become an issue of national concern.
Congress asked the National Research Council to investigate technologies for tagging or physically altering explosive materials, and to examine the feasibility of controlling access to these materials to prevent terrorist attacks. Explosive materials may be altered by mixing additives to make them more difficult to detonate, or by adding detection markers or identification taggants so their origins can be traced before or after detonation.
Detection markers, such as chemical additives, can help law enforcement officers find explosives before a blast. Identification taggants -- for example, particulate additives containing coded information -- are used to determine a bomb's origins before or after detonation. About 2, illegal bombings occur annually in the United States, but only a small percentage involve loss of life, injuries, or significant property damage. Although seldom used in such bombings, commercial "high explosives" -- which include dynamite and ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil -- can have devastating consequences, particularly in large bombs.
The most frequently used materials are commercial "low explosives," such as gunpowder and fillers commonly found in fireworks. Black and smokeless powders -- low explosives which are used in about one-third of all illegal bombings -- were excluded from the committee's study and are being similarly assessed by another National Research Council committee.
A Strategy for Controlling Illegal Use of Explosives The problem of illegal bombings is difficult to address from a policy perspective, the report notes. About 5 billion pounds of commercial high explosives are used annually in the United States for legitimate purposes, but the quantity used in illegal bombings is small. Policy measures that attempt to address the illegal use of explosives will inevitably impinge on everyday commerce, the committee said.
Complying with new regulations also could be costly for the private sector and consumers. But if terrorist bombings were to increase substantially, the savings in lives, property damage, and enhanced security could justify the costs.
The devastating explosion at a port in Beirut yesterday evening Aug. The initial explosion ignited a fire, while the second painted the sky in an apocalyptic mushroom cloud and sent a shock wave rippling across the city, leveling buildings and wounding thousands.
Ammonium nitrate, which is used in fertilizers and bomb making, is a salt made from ammonium and nitric acid, and it is highly explosive. The more ammonium nitrate, or NH4-NO3, the bigger its explosive capacity. And there was a lot, reportedly, being stored at the port: The Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2, metric tons, or more than 2, tons, of ammonium nitrate had been being stored at the port since , The Washington Post reported.
Related: Top 10 greatest explosions ever. Diab also said port officials had warned of the dangers of storing so much of an explosive chemical at the port, the Post said. Ammonium nitrate is frequently added to increase a fertilizer's nitrogen content. It's relatively stable under most conditions and is inexpensive to manufacture, making the chemical a popular alternative to other, more expensive nitrogen sources.
But ammonium nitrate has a potentially lethal downside: The compound is considered an oxidizer, meaning at an atomic level, it removes electrons from other substances in a chemical reaction. The prizes were instituted by Alfred Nobel, who financed the prizes thanks to his patents for the explosives dynamite and gelignite. Like other explosives, these comprise a molecular mix that releases energy suddenly, most often accompanied by the production of heat, light, gases, pressure and deafening sound.
In his Nobel acceptance speech, Haber acknowledged only that his discovery would help feed the world by improving soil fertility with ammonia.
And there is no doubt that it did — populations have more than tripled since then. Haber also contributed to that effort with the production of chlorine gas. What is more, Haber almost certainly did not anticipate the implications of his discovery for fixing ammonia for its contribution to climate change.
Studies have estimated that about half of the increase in the world population today owes its existence to nitrogen fertilizers. Interestingly, it also provides data on non-fertilizer applications, among which the manufacture of explosives. However, as we witnessed in Beirut, the explosive was exactly the same molecule as fertilizer, ammonium nitrate.
As the ammonia produced by petrochemistry can be used to make explosives as well as to fertilize soils, calculations of the number of people fed by the Haber-Bosch process should also perhaps take into account those killed in armed conflicts in the course of the 20th century. Another link to explosives is that the same molecule used for fertilizers can be used to produce other explosives when mixed with a small amount of fuel oil.
This combination has been used for criminal and terrorist attacks , but also legally.
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