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Topic: Thermochemistry of Ammonium Nitrate  (Read 3630 times)

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Offline djay

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Thermochemistry of Ammonium Nitrate
« on: January 13, 2011, 12:16:15 PM »
Hi,

I've been reading a lot of articles about ammonium nitrate but I can't find some information. I have a project which consists of designing an ammonium nitrate plant.
there are articles about the kinetics of decomposition and dissociation but there is no information about the foward reaction to produce AN.

The information that I've been looking for are the activation energy and the A in the Arrhenius equation for the reaction in the aqueous phase as well as Gibbs, enthalpy and entropy of it.

If you have any books or articles that will give me these information, please send the links or the bibliography.

Thanks a lot

Offline Enthalpy

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Re: Thermochemistry of Ammonium Nitrate
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2011, 11:01:48 PM »
This wasn't your question, please pardon me...

Laws treat Ammonium Nitrate as a fertilizer, but sensible engineers should treat it for what it is: an explosive.
A primary explosive if tainted with some fuel. A secondary explosive even if pure. Big amounts even allow it to switch from burning to detonation mode without a detonator.

It happened with a cargo ship in France (Le Havre? 1948?). Good part of the port destroyed.
Law didn't impose appropriate safety measures (would have banned it as a fertilizer I suppose).
So it happened again in Toulouse (2001?). Part of the city destroyed.
It had also happened before and meanwhile. Perfectly known.

So if I can dare a suggestion:
Please do more than law requires. Treat this stuff as far as possible for what it is: an explosive.
Try hard to store limited unit amounts of it, separated in a way that prevents the explosion to propagate.
As such a plant is a perfect target, protect it passively and actively against military and covert action.

Sorry for the interruption.

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