Fertilizer bomb how does it work

Fleming said iron sulfate in fertilizer adds iron and acidifies soil. It takes alkaline soil and makes it more neutral, closer to an ideal pH level," he said. Crop yield would improve significantly. Sandia could have patented the formula but opted to waive ownership rights for humanitarian reasons. Replacing ammonium nitrate with a non-detonable fertilizer in Afghanistan and other parts of the world will not happen overnight, Fleming said.

Ammonium nitrate is produced in huge plants in many locations. But he said there are some ideas about how to get the non-detonable formula, which would not cost more to produce, into the marketplace. Prove it to them gradually. He said his sense of urgency in tackling the issue came from looking into the eyes of hundreds of soldiers he trained in anti-IED tactics.

At a meeting last year in Crystal City, Va. He stepped on a non-metal trigger and set off a blast that took off both legs. He became a double amputee in milliseconds. So when I sit next to him and see the aftermath of an IED, I have to think of any way possible to keep this from happening. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U. The energy of the detonation wave causes the ammonium nitrate in the fertilizer to vaporize — the solid fertilizer becomes a gas in an instant.

The ammonium and nitrate molecules break down, and a large amount of oxygen gas is suddenly formed. The gas released from the decomposing fertilizer is what drives the explosion. The rapid release of oxygen, along with the energy from the detonation wave, ignites the fuel. When the liquid fuel ignites, it rapidly combusts, and even more gas is released. The pressure waves travel at the speed of sound , about 1, feet meters per second, and can damage nearby structures or even kill bystanders if the waves are strong enough, Goodpaster said.

Heat is also released during the combustion, and it may be enough to set a car on fire, but most of the damage from such explosions is due to the pressure waves.

The fertilizer and the fuel have to be combined in a just the right proportions, Goodpaster said, or else nothing will happen. It would just burn," he said. Plants need nitrogen to build proteins, and it is difficult to get that nitrogen from the atmosphere which may seem odd, since our atmosphere is nearly eighty per cent nitrogen.

The N 2 molecule consists of two nitrogen atoms joined by a triple atomic bond; that triple bond makes atmospheric nitrogen so stable that, for years, scientists thought it was an inert gas. It takes a lot of energy to break apart the N 2 molecule, energy most plants do not have, so they get nitrogen in other ways: either through nitrogen-fixing bacteria bacteria equipped with special nitrogen-busting enzymes, which combine atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen to make ammonia , or fertilizers like animal manure, whose composition can be nearly five per cent nitrogen.

It is made of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. The bonds between these elements are less stable than atmospheric N 2 bonds, so plants can more readily get at the nitrogen. The nitrate portion of the fertilizer NO 3 is already in the form plants can use; the ammonium portion NH 4 is slowly converted to usable nitrate by soil bacteria, and thus remains available to the plant for a longer time. Now, think back to the very stable N 2 molecule.