max.yevs

Got a kg of sodium persulfate recently, which although expensive was an easier oxidizer to find (at an electronics store) then any nitrate or chlorate or perchlorate... It was quite interesting, when put on a piece of paper, it made that paper burn extremely bright...(it decomposes below 451 F) But what I really bought it for was trying to make a violent reaction with powdered aluminum.... This should have worked perfectly- the principal decomposition of persulfate is to donate a sulfate radical: Na2S2O8 + Al > Na2SO4 + Al2(SO4)3 Of course in the heat of this reaction and excess aluminum, the sulfates should decompose into sulfides and oxygen, making the overall reaction 3Na2S2O8 + 18Al > 3Na2S + Al2S3 + 8Al2O3 + 9747 kj... about twice as energetic as thermite by weight... but after mixing sodium persulfate and aluminum in a 2:1 ratio by weight, which i was afraid was going to explode, did not ignite with a blowtorch (it should ignite much easier then thermite)... It almost looked like the aluminum started to melt or something... oh yeah and theres no point to this thread... I know aluminum can be oxidized by a nitrate, which makes me surprised that a persulfate could not do the job...

chlorine hydrochloric acid nitric acid iodine sulfuric acid aluminum potassium perchlorate potassium persulfate hydrogen peroxide potassium permanganate

potassium hydroxide should work... i would assume nitric acid actually behaves like a proton donating acid when mixed with a base, and not so much as an oxidizer... even baking soda should work according to http://www.umanitoba.ca/admin/human_resources/ehso/media/Concentratedacidmixtures.pdf

im not sure, but i think HCl is a stronger acid HNO3 (given that HNO3 is more corrosive as an oxidizer than an acid), meaning that you can just mix HCl with NH4NO3 to get NH4Cl and HNO3... if not, H2SO4 will definately do the job: NH4NO3 + H2SO4 > (NH4)2 SO4 + 2HNO3... Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedyes im pretty sure HCl will react with NH4NO3 to form nitric acid (and ammonium chloride) I ran the equation through a thermochemical calculator- NH4NO3(s) + HCl(g) = NH4Cl(s) + HNO3(l) + 30.84kJ showing that this reaction should occur spontaneously but ill be able to tell for sure if it works very soon...

ammonium nitrate should work great... rdx can be made fairly simply from ammonia, nitric acid, methane... not that i'm into making illegal explosives