Liquid Explosives
Well, the big news lately is the threat of liquid explosives being built in airplanes. My initial reaction to this news was one of skepticism. I figured if the threat is really that serious then security personnel wouldn’t be dumping random liquids into barrels.
Seriously… if you’re afraid that somebody is going to make an explosive out of liquids the last thing you want to be doing is mixing them all together in an airport terminal. Hell, that’s just not safe period. A little hydrochloric acid (HCl, found in toilet bowl cleaners) combines with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO, bleach) would release toxic chlorine gas. Since we can’t trust the security personnel to properly identify drinking water then I’m going to presume that they can’t ID these other chemicals that shouldn’t be mixed together.
So, tonight I did some digging into liquid explosives. What’s out there, what’s the easiest to make, and how easy is it? I have a cursory understanding of how explosives work and a fairly sound grasp on basic chemistry so I wasn’t worried about being able to keep up with technical articles on the subject. Hell, it’s actually a fun topic for me to be looking up. I’m a guy — we did stuff that goes boom.
Apparently a substance known as acetone peroxide is considered the most likely goal of the terrorists in this situation. I say this because it was also the substance used in the July 7th UK tube bombings.
Other fairly common liquid explosives are nitroglycerine and Astrolite.
I think we can rule nitroglycerine right out because it’s too unstable to be transported. It wouldn’t take much to set it off before the plane was even boarded. Further, it’s not exactly easy to manufacture. Certainly not something that one could even attempt in the bathroom of an airliner.
Now, Astrolite is another beast entirely. It seems far simpler to make, consisting of only ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) and hydrazine. While hydrazine is a liquid at room temperature ammonium nitrate most certainly isn’t. Given it’s organic nature ammonium nitrate would show up on an x-ray scan machine used to screen carry-on baggage. As we’ve seen previously the TSA will shut down an airport when they see an organic object under their x-ray machines that they can’t identify; even if it’s just a freaking cookie.
So, we can rule out Astrolite too I think.
Now, back to acetone peroxide. It’s unstable as hell but the ingredients are quite stable until they’re all mixed together. So, you’d stand a decent chance of getting this stuff onto a plane. Sorta. Airport terminals have already been cleared out when nail polish remover (acetone) was smelled. Further, within the past year a plane landed because the crew smelled nail polish remover.
So, good luck playing around with that stuff on a plane and not having anybody notice. Still, let’s suspend belief for a bit here and presume that nobody on the plane in this post 9/11 world would freak right the fuck out at the smell of something odd.
Hydrogen peroxide, the other main ingredient in acetone peroxide is fairly docile. Plenty of folks use it for mouth wash and just like acetone you can buy it at any drug store. Even the stuff that’s 3% pure will work — no need to get all industrial here.
So, how easy is it to make turn these two liquids into an explosive? Let’s take a look:
Before beginning the synthesis procedure, you should put the H2O2 [ed: hydrogen peroxide] and 2-Propanone [ed: acetone] in a refrigerator for several hours. This will speed up the procedure.
Hmm. I’m guessing that’s not going to happen on an airplane.
Once the several hours have passed, prepare an ice bath for the glass beaker. Pouring a small amount of water around the beaker with plenty of ice seems to work well, as the cold water will surround the beaker better than the ice alone.
Try asking your next flight attending for a pound of ice on your next flight. I’m guessing that might stand out.
Put the H2O2 into the beaker in the ice bath, and add 60mL chilled 2-Propanone. Measure the temperature of the liquids with a thermometer and wait for it to drop to around 40 °F (4.4 °C).
How the hell are you going to control the temperature of a chemical reaction when you’re in the bathroom of an airplane?
Using a glass eyedropper, slowly add 15mL H2SO4 [ed: sulfuric acid. Found in car batteries]. Monitor the temperature closely while adding the H2SO4, if the temperature gets around 50 °F (10 °C), quit adding the H2SO4. Failure to quit adding the H2SO4 when the temperature rises may risk explosion.
Okay, so failure to keep the temp below 50 °F means Ackmed just lost a couple of fingers.
Oh, and what the hell are you going to put sulfuric acid into and sneak it onto a plane? It’d have to be fairly diluted to keep it from eating right through a plastic soda-pop bottle if my memory serves me correctly.
When all of the H2SO4 has been added, stir the mixture for about 15 minutes.
Uhm, at this point you would have been in that bathroom an awful long time.
After 15 minutes, place the reaction mixture into a refrigerator for about 24 hours.
Whoa! How long is this flight!?
A white crystalline solid will result. This crystalline mass can then be filtered out with filter paper. When the crystalline mass has been filtered, pour 400mL of water over it to wash the acid residue away. Set the crystalline mass out to dry. The crystalline mass is tricycloacetone peroxide. If you did the reaction above 50 °F (10 °C), you will have the much more unpleasant dicycloacetone peroxide.
Shit. This really turned out to be a bit of work.
Ice, refrigerators, thermometers, sulfuric acid, 24 hours, filtering, drying — all of this in the bathroom of an airplane?
Still sound plausible to you?
Not me.