On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> I just caught that on the TV news as well and was underwhelmed.
> Pour liquid oxygen on porous silicon and you get a bang. Duh.
I thought it was nanoporous, with a covalently bound monoatomic hydrogen
layer on top.
> Surprise. Liquid oxygen plus coal dust, sawdust, etc has already been
> used as an explosive in mining around the time of WWI.
It was also used during WWII in the Soviet Union. Cryotrap with organics
condensing oxygen due to a leak is the bane of every experimental chemist.
Blue cryotrap spell "UH-OH". I've never seen one blow, but people say it's
spectacular.
> Well, maybe that is special.
They claim 10^6 faster kinetics than trinitrotoluene, and a higher energy
density (duh, TNT is rather lame).
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