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Need the name of a dynamite catalyst...

  • 01-01-2008 12:23pm
    #1
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 35,726 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    I've been trying to find the name of the little white balls which are sometimes used together with dynamite sticks to produce explosions for well-boring and shaft-blasting in mines.

    In the attached picture, the dynamite (malleable and green, broken up into small pieces) is placed in a plastic bag with the white stuff and a fuse pushed into it then what I think is a blasting cap is clipped onto the end and lit.

    Anyone know what this stuff is called or what exactly its function is?


Comments

  • #2
    humbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,238 ✭✭✭humbert


    Are you sure it's not Ammonium Nitrate, often used in blasting. Oh and the blasting cap would be in the explosive, not to be lit at the end of the fuse!

    I hope you're not going to attempt anything unwise!


  • #3
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 35,726 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    Hehe :) Very possibly ammonium nitrate. What would eb the name of the metal bit at the end of the fuse that gets lit?

    I was just an interested spectator at the blast, but can't remember for the life of me what the bits and bobs were all for.


  • #4
    humbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,238 ✭✭✭humbert


    I wouldn't think it's metal, probably just paper or some similar hydrocarbon coated or wrapped in whatever the fuse is made up of, black powder, cordite, I dunno what they use.


  • #5
    chem
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,230 ✭✭✭chem


    Most likely ammonium nitrate. It take a large blasting cap to set it off. A larger cap then would set off nitro based dynamite. So if you only had a blasting cap powerfull enough to set off dynamite you could use the dynamite then to set off the AN. The fuse looks like industrial safty fuse. Unlike the Green fuse you see on fireworks it is more water proof. but the same thing more or less. The bit at the end is prob some type of touch paper. Slightly nitrated paper.


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