more powerful oxidizers in black powder

[pyrochris732]

Has anyone tried to use a different oxidizer other than KNO3 in black powder? Please excuse my lack of chemistry knowledge if this seems like a silly question but how would this affect the outcome of black powder if you used perchlorate? I know its more powerful than other oxidizers so would using it make a dangerous composition?

 

 

[Mumbles]

If you replaced nitrate with perchlorate, you'd pretty much get "KP" burst composition. I use it frequently to burst shells, plus no milling required, or suggested. It doesn't work very well for lift, as it requires a higher pressure to preform up to par. It works well for bursting shells 3-6" thus far. I used to use it to break canisters, but I've returned to BP.

[Twotails]

It would not be black powder, it would be KP, a type of burst. also if you put it in your ball mill it would possably blow up. Other oxidizers arnt normaly used to my knowlege exept sodium nitrate(if your out of KNO3 its used as a substitute?) but its hydroscopic.

 

Shimizu's KP Burst #1 is as follows

Potassium perchlorate 70%

Hemp coal 18%

Sulfur 12%

SGRS +2%

i like to use Red gum.

 

its similer, but you'd never ball mill it with an oxidizer, and its too powerful to be used as a substitute.

 

Thats my understanding.

Edited May 26, 2010 by Twotails

[Arthur]

I think every 19th century oxidiser has been used! SOME will spontaneously ignite -which has killed many people in the attempt at alternative BP for military purposes. Most alternative BPs have problem properties, Hygroscopic, hyper sensitive, chemical incompatibilities, lower power, higher power, and temperature stability problems!

 

Read some serious literature before you start. Several alternative BPs are too sensitive to mill.

 

None of the rules of thumb, for quantity and quality of BP needed, work for any of the other alternatives.

 

Also BP is probably the cheapest powder to make, the oxidiser being about 75% is the most significant item in the costing of the whole powder.

[Dystrophy]

As all or most of the decomposition products are gaseous, I imagine ammonium perchlorate would be an interesting oxidizer to substitute in. More expensive, sure, but interesting none the less.

[Arthur]

You are making things very expensive! Also AP isn't that easily available.

 

Ammonium Nitrate mixed with charcoal makes AmmonPulver which, because of the gaseous products, is very powerful -some say as powerful as nitrocellulose propellants. HOWEVER Ammonium nitrate undergoes crystal habit changes with temperature, and at 34C the crystal lattice changes and expands. This breaks down any granules into something much finer and faster, and may well break mortars -which is why it's never really been used in commerce.

[dagabu]

You are making things very expensive! Also AP isn't that easily available.

 

Hobby Chemical has it for $4.00 a pound. I get it all of the time for falling leaves. Great stuff.

[Lionel]

If you replaced nitrate with perchlorate, you'd pretty much get "KP" burst composition. I use it frequently to burst shells, plus no milling required, or suggested. It doesn't work very well for lift, as it requires a higher pressure to preform up to par. It works well for bursting shells 3-6" thus far. I used to use it to break canisters, but I've returned to BP.

 

Why did you switch back to using BP for your canister breaks? Was the KP giving you problems?

 

Thanks,

Lionel

[Ralph]

KP is expensive and so generally coated onto a media (filling a shell with KP pulverone would set you back a bit) were as bp is borderline free and so you can cheaply fill a cansiter with BP pulverone and have all the structural advantages of it

[Mumbles]

It has to do with the coated media. In most cases, no matter what you use for a carrier, it has at least a little compression, which is not something I wanted. It worked fine for single break shells. When you get to multi-break shells, and the weight gets up there, removing every bit of give or soft spots becomes immensely important. Potassium Perchlorate isn't prohibitively expensive for me, so economics didn't come into play. When you're putting a couple kilos of colored stars, an extra 200 or 300g of KP doesn't seem as bad.

 

Mostly the reason I switched back to BP was that I got a larger mill and could finally keep up with my BP bursting needs.

[inonickname]

On the note of ammonpulver, does anyone have experience with it?

 

I used blasting AN (unmixed) and the very same charcoal I use in my black powder, and milled it for a similar amount of time, and yet got a disappointing result. I know it's meant to be hard to ignite, but when it DID ignite the "burning" was more characteristic of slow AN decomposition. Do I need to oven dry my AN first, or is something else the issue? The charcoal is jarrah, and works well in BP.

[Ralph]

its very pressure sensative (somewhat like smokless powder or KP) if you confine it well (thick paper and good spiking) it will report, if you press it into a motor (core burner) it should fly quite well (I havent tried core burner never bothered but my end burner got nowere)