A scary video about binary explosives...

[statman]

likely similar to what the Fail-a-bomber tried to use on flight 253...

http://www.breitbart.tv/online-video...ht-293-device/

I would be a lot more comfortable if I knew this video was fake. Any organic chemists or chem-e's on the board?

[BlueHair]

I don't know anything about this, but I agree is scary. Imagine what could be done to large gathering areas.

[thesaint258]

From what I understand (coming from friends interested in such things), the video is accurate. I've read before that such explosives are rare though.

[DU Ute]

Knocking a watermelon off a post doesn't seem like that big a deal. I know this is a powerful explosive, but the demo left me unimpressed.

[FMCoug]

Knocking a watermelon off a post doesn't seem like that big a deal. I know this is a powerful explosive, but the demo left me unimpressed.

It was one drop. Imagine say 4 oz worth (what you can bring in liquid in a carry-on).

[statman]

Knocking a watermelon off a post doesn't seem like that big a deal. I know this is a powerful explosive, but the demo left me unimpressed.

Blowing apart a watermelon that weighs a couple kilograms, with an explosive that weighs a fraction of a gram is a pretty big deal. The amount of explosive you could put in a whole pen - if you filled it all the way up - could easily blow a hole in the side of an airliner. And if you're at altitude, any hole and you're likely looking at catastrophic structural failure.

Which begs the question - why did this guy wait until they were on their final approach to landing? By that time, they were probably below the level where the cabin was pressurized, so you'd need a much bigger hole to bring the plane down. If what he was actually trying to do was ensure that the plane came down, it would've been more logical to do it in the middle of the flight over the Atlantic, at 35,000 feet, and when most of the passengers would be sleeping. But if all he really wanted to do was cause terror, the attempt itself guarantees success - whether they actually brought the plane down or not. That method also means that you don't really have to bother actually training anyone to do the deed. Give him a device that looks like the real deal - even if it only has an outside chance of actually working - and the goal is accomplished without killing someone who actually knows what they're doing. All the better from Al Qaeda's POV...

[DU Ute]

It was one drop. Imagine say 4 oz worth (what you can bring in liquid in a carry-on).

The detonation velocity of C-4 is almost twice as much than it is for this stuff. It isn't as if this is some super explosive. This video seems like an attempt to get people worked up over something relatively benign.

[DU Ute]

Blowing apart a watermelon that weighs a couple kilograms, with an explosive that weighs a fraction of a gram is a pretty big deal. The amount of explosive you could put in a whole pen - if you filled it all the way up - could easily blow a hole in the side of an airliner. And if you're at altitude, any hole and you're likely looking at catastrophic structural failure.

I'd never get on a plane again if I thought you could punch a hole in one with a pen sized chunk of C-4. I think you're either drastically underestimating the structural integrity of an airplane or overestimating the power of this explosive.

[statman]

I'd never get on a plane again if I thought you could punch a hole in one with a pen sized chunk of C-4. I think you're either drastically underestimating the structural integrity of an airplane or overestimating the power of this explosive.

Of course a couple ounces of C-4 can punch a hole in a plane. The lockerbie plane was brought down with less than a pound (~11 ounces) of Semtex stuffed into a boombox, and it was randomly placed in the cargo hold with a barometric switch. It blew a 22-inch hole in the plane. A fraction of that amount, placed near the hull of the plane (the pantybomber was in a window seat), would have a similar effect.

[il Padrino Ute]

likely similar to what the Fail-a-bomber tried to use on flight 253...

http://www.breitbart.tv/online-video...ht-293-device/

I would be a lot more comfortable if I knew this video was fake. Any organic chemists or chem-e's on the board?

Apparently, one incident wasn't enough for flight 253:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/food-p...ory?id=9430057

Even though this turned out to be nothing, if there were any passengers that were on the jet for the first incident with the failed bombing attempt, I'd imagine that they won't be flying any time soon if they can help it.

[statman]

After doing a little research - my guess is that the solid is Pentaerythritol - it's a white solid/powder at room temperature. The red liquid is likely red fuming nitric acid. The stuff is nasty-dangerous - very caustic, and also a very strong oxidizing agent. It's a mixture of nitric acid, and a bunch of free nitrates. As such, it's not tremendously useful in industry - they want pure nitric acid, which is made using the Haber process to make ammonia, and then the ammonia is used to make virtually pure nitric acid. This process is usually done on the site where the nitric acid is used, because very pure nitric acid has a limited shelf-life before it degrades into the less useful and more dangerous RFNA. You wouldn't want to get RFNA on your skin - although it's less concentrated than pure nitric acid, it's a lot more damaging to organic compounds.

Mix the Pentaerythritol with excess RFNA, and under the right conditions, you just might get enough of a high explosive called PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate)(also what the shoe bomber tried to use) that you could do some serious damage. The problem - for anyone but a suicide bomber - in trying to make PETN this way, the reaction gives off a lot of heat. If you're mixing up enough of it in this manner, it will likely explode/ignite on its own (depending on how complete the reactions are before it gets too hot)(the industrial manufacture of the stuff uses a different process and is done below -5 degrees C to keep everything from blowing-up).

According to some reports on flight 253, what the fail-a-bomber did sounds like he could be mixing these two together - he injected a liquid into another container that seemed to contain a white powder. Some reports have also confirmed that PETN was found on the plane. Sounds like this maybe what the nutjob tried to do the other day...

[DU Ute]

Of course a couple ounces of C-4 can punch a hole in a plane. The lockerbie plane was brought down with less than a pound (~11 ounces) of Semtex stuffed into a boombox, and it was randomly placed in the cargo hold with a barometric switch. It blew a 22-inch hole in the plane. A fraction of that amount, placed near the hull of the plane (the pantybomber was in a window seat), would have a similar effect.

11 ounces of C-4 is much bigger than a pen. My point is that this video should not leave you any more concerned about a plane being taken down than you should have been before watching. This stuff is pretty pedestrian explosives-wise. What is the big deal about this video?

[DU Ute]

After doing a little research - my guess is that the solid is Pentaerythritol - it's a white solid/powder at room temperature. The red liquid is likely red fuming nitric acid. The stuff is nasty-dangerous - very caustic, and also a very strong oxidizing agent. It's a mixture of nitric acid, and a bunch of free nitrates. As such, it's not tremendously useful in industry - they want pure nitric acid, which is made using the Haber process to make ammonia, and then the ammonia is used to make virtually pure nitric acid. This process is usually done on the site where the nitric acid is used, because very pure nitric acid has a limited shelf-life before it degrades into the less useful and more dangerous RFNA. You wouldn't want to get RFNA on your skin - although it's less concentrated than pure nitric acid, it's a lot more damaging to organic compounds.

Mix the Pentaerythritol with excess RFNA, and under the right conditions, you just might get enough of a high explosive called PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate)(also what the shoe bomber tried to use) that you could do some serious damage. The problem - for anyone but a suicide bomber - in trying to make PETN this way, the reaction gives off a lot of heat. If you're mixing up enough of it in this manner, it will likely explode/ignite on its own (depending on how complete the reactions are before it gets too hot)(the industrial manufacture of the stuff uses a different process and is done below -5 degrees C to keep everything from blowing-up).

According to some reports on flight 253, what the fail-a-bomber did sounds like he could be mixing these two together - he injected a liquid into another container that seemed to contain a white powder. Some reports have also confirmed that PETN was found on the plane. Sounds like this maybe what the nutjob tried to do the other day...

Still not very powerful compared to other types of explosives.

[statman]

This stuff is pretty pedestrian explosives-wise. What is the big deal about this video?

If it is PETN - which is what someone at the FBI said it was yesterday - it's still a high explosive. A helluva lot more powerful that black powder or anything similar - that aren't high explosives at all. There is nothing "pedestrian" about PETN.

[statman]

Still not very powerful compared to other types of explosives.

Power matters less than "can you make it at your seat?" Which is what it appears the idiot was trying to do. pentaerythritol + red fuming nitric acid would in theory produce SOME PETN. If he could have done the reaction on ice, it likely would have produced a lot of PETN - still not oas pure as the industrial process, but certainly enough to be a major problem. But he did it in his pants instead, making only a lot of heat from the reaction, and combustion, not explosion, from the compounds made by the reaction.

It's pretty clear the guy was a sacrificial lamb thrown out there by Al Qaeda. Better to use an untrained patsy to cause a terrorist incident, with the outside chance that it may do some actual damage, instead of wasting a real resource with a suicide bomb that would actually work. The terror result is still the same. An idiot DID try to light off a bomb on a plane. People are still worried about it. There are still huge delays for anyone flying into the US. And they didn't have to use a real bomb maker to do it.

But I still find it absolutely ridiculous that our Homeland Security Secretary claims that this incident was a victory for DHS. Her days are probably numbered at DHS. What she said was too stupid for even the Obama administration to gloss over...