Respirator when dealing with Powder?

CanAm said:
Nitro can be absorbed through the skin.
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This is true, but the nitro content in smokeless powder is so small that you'd have to be buried naked up to your neck in the stuff before you even got a headache. I've had minor nitro headaches from handling dynamite, but there are no long lasting effects, although it does drop your blood pressure, which in my case is a good thing.:eek:

Modern propellants do not become airborne through normal handloading procedures, so I do not see any benefit from wearing a mask.
 
Bobby Ironsights said:
Not true, pistol powders contain up to 40% nitroglycerin.
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I understand that powders in the Primex family have from 0-40% nitroglycerine, but I am not sure what that means. Does it mean that a 16 oz can of propellant contains up to 6.4 oz of nitro? If so you probably shouldn't drop it, particularly if it is a few years old. I currently have a number of powders in the Primex family on hand, as would most handloaders, but unlike dynamite that uses nitroglycerine as a sensitizer, I have never seen any of these powders sweat nitroglycerine as it ages. Nitroglycerine is a heavy, colorless oil, and if a volume of propellant contained 40% I doubt if it would be dry to the touch. Even new dynamite has a damp feel to it. Perhaps there is a chemist on the board who could explain.
 
It is heavily heavily gelatinized with the nitrocellulose reducing sensitivity of double-based smokeless powder to such a degree that it requires a beefy booster and pretty heavy confinement if you were to want it to detonate. There is absolutely no risk of this from handling. It does not even detonate from the primer in the cartridge, and the primers contain a primary explosive; the other use of primary explosives is in blasting caps for the initiation of less-sensitive explosives. No worries at all :) That is exactly what 40% means.

Dynamite is nitroglycerine absorbed onto kieselguhr (without getting fancy), kieselguhr is non-explosive, so you cannot really say it is sensitized by nitro, more that it desensitizes nitro. ;)

As for why dynamite sweats and smokeless powder does not, there is no real chemical similarity between nitro and kieselguhr, so nothing holds it in other than physical adsorption onto kieselguhr's massive surface area. When mixed with nitrocellulose as in smokeless, nitrocellulose is a nitrate ester just like nitroglycerine, so intermolecular forces hold the two together better.
 
It's to bad that the thread starter is so far from me as i am a gov. certified depot for those bad powders, powders shipped should be new or close to it, in it's orig. can and properly identified, am also approved to dispose of primers in bulk amounts. Pm me for the cost of this service, as I also take care of the necessary Gov. paperwork, you can just sit back and relax, knowing that someone else will have to smell those bad powders.
 
pie1 said:
It is heavily heavily gelatinized with the nitrocellulose reducing sensitivity of double-based smokeless powder to such a degree that it requires a beefy booster and pretty heavy confinement if you were to want it to detonate. There is absolutely no risk of this from handling. It does not even detonate from the primer in the cartridge, and the primers contain a primary explosive; the other use of primary explosives is in blasting caps for the initiation of less-sensitive explosives. No worries at all :) That is exactly what 40% means.

Dynamite is nitroglycerine absorbed onto kieselguhr (without getting fancy), kieselguhr is non-explosive, so you cannot really say it is sensitized by nitro, more that it desensitizes nitro. ;)

As for why dynamite sweats and smokeless powder does not, there is no real chemical similarity between nitro and kieselguhr, so nothing holds it in other than physical adsorption onto kieselguhr's massive surface area. When mixed with nitrocellulose as in smokeless, nitrocellulose is a nitrate ester just like nitroglycerine, so intermolecular forces hold the two together better.
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Kieselguhr hasn't been used in dynamite formulations for quite some time as it is beneficial to use materials that increase the strength of the explosive rather than an inert material. Although nitroglycerin in today's dynamite contributes to the explosive energy, it is most often used as a sensitizer to ensure a complete reaction of the nitrate fuel mixtures. The various formulations for dynamites have become so varied that the name ceases to have much meaning and some dynamites are even nitroglycerin free, yet retain the name.
 
ben hunchak said:
It's to bad that the thread starter is so far from me as i am a gov. certified depot for those bad powders, powders shipped should be new or close to it, in it's orig. can and properly identified, am also approved to dispose of primers in bulk amounts. Pm me for the cost of this service, as I also take care of the necessary Gov. paperwork, you can just sit back and relax, knowing that someone else will have to smell those bad powders.
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Hey Ben, me too. I got a gig a few years ago to destroy 3 tons of explosives, this is what it looked like from 2 miles away, check how long it took the sound to hit the camera. I was nice and safe under a D-7 about a half mile from the show.

 
Boomer said:
Kieselguhr hasn't been used in dynamite formulations for quite some time as it is beneficial to use materials that increase the strength of the explosive rather than an inert material. Although nitroglycerin in today's dynamite contributes to the explosive energy, it is most often used as a sensitizer to ensure a complete reaction of the nitrate fuel mixtures. The various formulations for dynamites have become so varied that the name ceases to have much meaning and some dynamites are even nitroglycerin free.
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True, but what had been the main replacement, ammonium nitrate, exhibits a similar reason for sweating as the usual guhr dynamite.

NG free dynamite? are you referring to the cold weather use ones that use ethylene glycol dinitrate? I agree that the term has been bastardized from the its original use for desensitized nitroglycerine, I even saw a few scientific papers call a TNT/AN mix dynamite. It feels wrong to me to use the term dynamite for something like this... But I am a chemist, not a blaster.

(need a chemist for the next 3 ton blast? :p, also what is a D-7?)
 
Some people are sensitive to Nitro. My father used to carry the spray, and he said it always gave him a head ache when he used it.
I suggest you mention it to your doctor. Father had high blood pressure, and several heart conditions.
 
pie1 said:
True, but what had been the main replacement, ammonium nitrate, exhibits a similar reason for sweating as the usual guhr dynamite.

NG free dynamite? are you referring to the cold weather use ones that use ethylene glycol dinitrate? I agree that the term has been bastardized from the its original use for desensitized nitroglycerine, I even saw a few scientific papers call a TNT/AN mix dynamite. It feels wrong to me to use the term dynamite for something like this... But I am a chemist, not a blaster.

(need a chemist for the next 3 ton blast? :p, also what is a D-7?)
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Sorry, A D-7 is a medium sized bulldozer made by Caterpillar. If you can be free to travel on short notice, I'd be happy to give you a call. Unfortunately these little fun jobs don't come up that often. That one was done at Isachsen on Ellef Rings Island in the high arctic (N78,46,57 W103 37,52.2).

A TNT/AN mix is called Amatol, and I believe it was developed in the First World War era, but I am unsure if it is still used in military munitions, certainly I am unaware of it's recent use on the commercial side. Even the use of TNT has been reduced from commercial explosives in recent years, although it is still a major ingrediant in cast boosters.

Modern dynamite dopes includes a percentage of glycol that enables a blaster to use these products in cold conditions without the necessity and danger of thawing . . . which isn't that dangerous if done correctly, but often was done incorrectly resulting in safety issues. I have had to thaw dynamite at -35 so that I could punch a hole in the stick to insert a detonator, but cold does not prevent modern dynamite from complete decomposition despite it's hard texture. Yet I have had problems with emulsion type explosives that I have attempted to use below -20 C. When a blast worth tens of thousands of dollars fails to shoot properly a problem is more properly described as a disaster. A modern dynamite stick initiated with a few wraps of 25 gr detonating cord would fire without any issue related to temperature, but in a carefully timed shot each stick must be primed with a detonator.

I think the logic of extending the name dynamite to non NG products was to keep the customer base in tact, produce a new product that had the brisance of a true dynamite of equal strength, but was cheaper and safer to produce, and that could be advertised as headache free dynamite. Examples are Austin's Helix 65 and 75. These have a VOD of 11,000 fps compared to 18,000 fps for the extra gel dynamite I like to keep on hand.

Non NG dynamites can also be developed for specific purposes such as LVD and MVD dynamites. Low velocity dynamite is composed of 17.5% RDX (Cyclonite), 67.8% TNT, 8.6% PETRIN, 4.1% binder (Vistac and DOS), and 2% acetylcellulose. Medium velocity dynamite was 75% RDX, 15% TNT, 5% starch, 4% oil (unspecified), 1% Vistanex oil gel. I have never seen nor used either product though.
 
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