is ballmilling BaSO4 mg and sulfur dangerous?

[klachner]

Hello guys,

 

i need to mix Barium sulfate, magnesium (40 micron) and Sulfur together, but if i only use a fine mesh sieve there will still be baso4 and sulfur clumps as big as the mesh holes, no matter how often i work it through. I wondered if i could just put this into a simple ballmill (plastic can and glass marbles as milling media) and mill it for about 20min so the marbles crush the little clumps and everything gets mixed the best way it can.

I know you should never mill compositions containing metal powders, and of course not flash compositions, but this flash powder composition doesnt contain an oxidiser like nitrate chlorate or perchlorate, and also isnt senitive against anything i tested

Do you think its still too dangerous to ball mill this together?

 

best regards

[Mumbles]

I would consider that mill itself dangerous. Never use glass marbles.

 

To answer your question though, yes I would consider that dangerous as well. If you're having trouble mixing the powders due to static, try milling just the barium sulfate and sulfur together without the metal. A finer screen works well too.

[NeighborJ]

Sulfates can be considered as high temp oxidizers. I don't think milling them with fuels such as sulfer would cause ignition under normal conditions but the possibility still exists. Shimizu reffered to sulfates as negative explosives, not extremely energetic nor easy to ignite but there are formulas out there using them as the primary oxidizer.

 

Mumbles suggestion of the finer screen is the safest option.

[redbullzuiper]

Sulfates can be considered as high temp oxidizers. I don't think milling them with fuels such as sulfer would cause ignition under normal conditions but the possibility still exists. Shimizu reffered to sulfates as negative explosives, not extremely energetic nor easy to ignite but there are formulas out there using them as the primary oxidizer.

 

Mumbles suggestion of the finer screen is the safest option.

 

He also mentions Magnesium. What hes milling is a BaSO4 based flash powder. The formula is BaSO4 5 Mg 5, another is BaSO4 5 Mg 4 S 1. Ive made it myself a long time ago, and it is the only Sulfate which can be ignite at fairly low temperatures. I used Magnalium however, and it went off when I hit it with a hammer, on a stone surface.

 

 

Just don't mill it, you are milling a flash powder. Imagine what happens when it goes off ...

Edited November 4, 2018 by redbullzuiper

[klachner]

hm okay i already expected that

why are glass marbles bad? never used them before

so i think i will try to get a 300 mesh screen for this

[redbullzuiper]

Because glas marbles are not meant for milling. Pieces of it will break off and create dangerous small particles of glas within your composition.

[cevmarauder]

Because glas marbles are not meant for milling. Pieces of it will break off and create dangerous small particles of glas within your composition.

Also, if it does blow, glass doesn't show up on x-ray, and to my knowledge, barely shows up on MRI/CT, so the guys picking shards out of you get to have a fun time chasing down through your wound channels (and every time you move, glass shards create more wounds and shift around) trying to pick out all the pieces.

 

This is why glass-filled improvised claymores are so horrible.

[cevmarauder]

Because glas marbles are not meant for milling. Pieces of it will break off and create dangerous small particles of glas within your composition.

Ooh, that jiggered my memory: allegedly, milling with glass (which is largely silica, AKA quartz) can possibly produce a piezoelectric impulse on impact between two glass marbles--even more likely with small glass particles in there. Which means they can actually create an electrical spark.

 

And you're wanting to mill what is basically flash.

 

It's really not even safe to mill black powder with glass.

 

Antimony-treated lead balls are cheap on eBay; you can also buy .50 cal lead balls in bulk for shotgun reloading (the eBay balls are larger). Or cast your own milling media--some people fill brass tubes with lead for their larger mills. If you haven't gotten a copy of Lloyd Sponenburgh's book on ball milling, you really should.