The Science Behind Tannerite

[@harrypeterson9287]

The ammonium nitrate used in tannerite is something called porous prilled ammonium nitrate or PPAN for short, as the name suggests it's full of little air pockets. These pockets of air are an integral part to initiating the detonation. The air pockets do two main things. First. They compress when struck by a bullet generating extremely high temperatures far beyond the decomposition point of the ammonium nitrate causing it to decompose into gasses, they're like thousands of tiny fire pistons inside every prill of AN. Secondly they act to greatly increase the available surface area for the aluminum powder to adhere to, this greatly increases how 'intimately' the AN and aluminum powder are combined. The nitrogen oxide gasses liberated when the AN decomposes are incredibly powerful oxidizers, the aluminum being an incredibly powerful reducer burns releasing more heat but also releasing lone atoms of nitrogen. Nitrogen normally exists diatomically with two nitrogen atoms linked together by a strong triple bond, This bond takes a considerable amount of energy to break but also creates a considerable amount of energy when formed, when two unpaired nitrogen atoms meet they snap together generating heat. Once initiated all of those things going on combined produce a chain reaction where enough heat and pressure is generated to sustain the reaction. In a nutshell. The detonation pathway for Tannerite is extremely rapid thermal decomposition.

[@gzuzsavz]

cool info, thnks. i always figured the white spheres felt really light. & i kind of thought the tannerite mixture was a bit short on aluminum..but now we see where more isn't always better, aha.

[@БожидарГеоргиев-с3г]

Thanks for the explanation)

[@MikeParrish-kw5xs]

You forgot my favorite part, When the two elements combined they form a lower state of Energy. So they throw off the energy They don't need and I'm able to record it in slow motion With my camera As a glitch, like an e.M.P

[@crintynono]

Thank you for this! I really appreciate the knowledge :)

[@ZearlyBird]

So say if I tapped 8 cans of tannerite together end to end. Would shooting the lead can cause a chain reaction, igniting the other 7 cans behind it?

[@Weisz]

AYY glad to see you posting again my man :)

[@sumans7620]

YOOOOOO MY DUDE HAS RETURNED Tom Scott Led me to Your channel, and I was Hooked! But you hadn’t uploaded in a while : ( Until Now!

[@jackdowse1246]

He hath returned, The day is good!

[@chadkent1241]

I've been shooting the stuff for well over a decade and the veil has been lifted on this mysteriously fun stuff, thanks to you. Cheers!!

[@mathusuthanvenkatesan]

yay! you are back!

[@TourmotoDesign]

Glad to see you back! I’ve always enjoyed shooting tannerite but never knew the chemistry behind it. Thanks for the lesson!

[@ScienceC]

Exactly, a buddy of mine gave me some for my birthday years ago but I could never find a place to shoot it.

[@dark2023-1lovesoni]

It's just Ammonal in a newer branding. Basic Oxidizer + Fuel same as most binary explosives (Eg: Kinepak, ANFO, AMNM, etc...). As far as the chemistry of "energic compounds, it's rather basic and old. It's military use alone is over a century old, it's discovery, recipe, and civil use is likely much older.

[@MNine3]

KEEP POSTING DUDE! You’ve got 20K subs already. You could make this channel have 100K by the end of the year if you throw more videos out there!

[@tonyhart97]

I love how the map behind him splits the biggest land mass on earth in half just so the US can be in the centre

[@ScienceC]

I know can you believe those Americans

[@harvey9290]

​@@ScienceC fAt

[@rparl]

If you used the UN image, it would stretch Antarctica into a ring to keep the world's oceans from running off the edge.

[@MrAwawe]

@@CharlieDB96 Greenwich is in Europe though. "It's that way so that Greenwich can be in the centre" it's not a refutation of the map being eurocentric.

[@tomfrommichigan]

I lived in Germany in the mid 80's and I had a similar map on one of the walls in my apartment. A German friend came over to visit. He was a bit amused, as he was a geography major in the university.

[@Stefan34566]

i am going to end up on so many watchlists

[@fb1000000]

Great video, it's a pleasure to hear you speak so passionately!

[@terryhsley3808]

Very good delivery. I will listen again.

[@eliannycardoso4429]

Great channel highly recommended

[@thecheapshot1065]

Great job well-researched you did an amazing job on this video I hope you did it for a school project just to piss off any anti-gun faculty members. Your parents have got to be so proud man you did a great job. If this was my son's project I would tell him that he is finally earned my love and has become my number one

[@szn00]

Explosive comeback🔥😂

[@ryklatortuga4146]

A blast from the past!

[@rw7594]

With 23k views how does this video only have just under 800 likes? Nice work young man. I love Tannerite. Fill a 1 gallon milk jug with it and it is spectacular at a safe distance. 😊

[@Jsingh074]

underrated channel on KZbin

[@tomjeffersonwasright2288]

Before playing with this stuff, watch the video where the exploding lawn mower fragment cuts off one of the shooter's legs. It will put playing with explosives in perspective.

[@FukGoogle-kg7un]

Well yeah it's generally not a good idea to put it inside of something. The only acceptable thing (might) be something like a snowman lol ☃️ putting it in anything metal is definitely asking for legal trouble as well as hospital bills or funeral expenses.

[@Meaty_Aberration]

​@@FukGoogle-kg7unworks fantastic on pumpkins

[@isaackogan269]

Welcome back!

[@GT-of4ts]

Awesome video with great information :)

[@ingeniousmechanic]

Excellent video value, my dude. You in here being intelligent and all, and we can't even call you a nerd, cause you're pretty handy with weapons and stuff

[@BougerFortniteJr]

wow this dude went from teaching me the science behind air dusters to this 😮😮 nice video bro 👍

[@keithjurena9319]

Aluminum is very energy dense. Combining with oxygen, it raises the bulk temperature, furthering the reactions. Tannerite is neither a solid like TNT nor a liquid like TNG so shock wave detonation progression is much slower. The intense IR released moves faster than the shock wave through the bulk.

[@mariemccann5895]

You are trying to sound very clever.

[@NaperekorSoodbe]

Quality video. Thank you!

[@CHRISTSlave7]

Good job

[@jaydenritchie1992]

i thought it had something to do with the comet effect, if you move something fast enough pieces of it will be left behind in the tail as it decomposes, this tail with be a low pressure area so the oxidizer decomposes even faster as the atmosphere cannot fill the void quick enough, it also cant cool down in a vacuum, something like that anyway i could be wrong

[@glennedgar2633]

Good explosive info.

[@alfonsopena4421]

I remember an old Nicaraguan guerrilla song that teaches people how to make explosives with ammonium nitrate, "black" aluminum, sawdust and asphalt.

[@MichaelLeeOne]

If you used powdered ammonium nitrate would the mixture be more sensitive?

[@lohikarhu734]

Nice science... Have you done NI3 ?

[@briankudalis9572]

Are you sure about that detonation velocity ?

[@peytongrass23]

Is that the fwc range in ocala ??

[@reesederosa8406]

Science chase back at it

[@skylerbergeron7453]

Just incase anyone is unaware. It’s what the Taliban primarily used in Helmand. They used a smaller primary charge instead of a bullet. Funny thing is, the UD was shipping in tons she tons of ammonium nitrate to these small villages. The IED manufacturers would have aluminum spray paint brought in and they would dry the paint on cardboard and scrape it off then work it into s powder. Guys with silver stained hands would get brought in. They’d put the tanerite these detergent jugs wire it to s battery with telephone wire and a pressure plate made out of styrofoam stripped wire. It was hard for our guys to sweep the plates and get a good metallic hit. Idk what the Taliban generally used for a primary charge. They usually held some local Mullahs son hostage and made him force his other kinfolk to burry the IED, or something like that. So if you took out the “digger” there was a good chance his son, brother, father and cousin would then go work for or join the Taliban to achieve “Pashtunwali” for his family.

[@Meaty_Aberration]

Tatp as the primary charge perhaps?

[@likebot.]

You should listen to a typical KZbinr video, such as Practical Engineering, followed by one of your own. It will help you tinker with sound levels. This video needs every inch of volume on my dial. Good content, worth watching regardless.

[@Wh3atley]

The kid's back!

[@LarryLaird-eb8rp]

Very interesting.

[@ianrenomtb]

Great video!

[@intellectualiconoclasm3264]

Illegal to ship, store, or transfer without ATF permission and ransom. And my understanding of the reaction is that it's just a super-fast redox reaction. The aluminum has a MUCH higher affinity for the oxygen than the nitrate ion. So it decomposes releaaing energy, and as it bond to the alluminumit relwases a bunch more. But the exploaion is because of the energy released over time. Tannerite will burn or explode. It's about the energy is released and how fast. Therefore, reaction time is proportional to the energy that started the reaction in this situation. A flame, low energy. A bullet moving fast enough to detonate lead-oxide and copper-oxides merely from impact, well we know that has a lot of energy. For those who don't know, those oxides are pretty stable and not prone to reactions like this. Well now you have that energy of impact mixed with a similar redox reaction from the alluminum and the oxides on the projectile. That's a double whammy on initiation, and the decomposition goes from a slow burn to "I'm all done, RIGHT NOW!"

[@frankrizzo2724]

Not illegal to ship, store or transfer.....

[@frankrizzo2724]

You can also use a blasting cap to set off tannerite. Or a firecracker.

[@falsedragon33]

Flash isn't going to set it off. You need a primary. A blasting cap is copper II nitrotetrizol. I like the silver version better. It's relatively easy to make with a good chemistry foundation. My favorite booms are simple flash powder. If I want the high-pitched crack, I'll mix some nitroglycerin and detonate it with silver nitrotetrazol.

[@frankrizzo2724]

@@falsedragon33 well I've been using firecrackers to set it off this whole time. Works every time.

[@honja6528]

​@@frankrizzo2724 you are only having partial detonate if you use a blasting cap you will mostly have a higher detonation % then flash powder. If you see a lot of smoke not all of it went off

[@r3djar]

Not much of a blinker

[@MaynMaker]

This killed me😂

[@JohnF-z7o]

Damn your right i blinked(blunked sounds better)like 7 times to his 1

[@ScutoidStudios]

I love your Channel Banner! You should make a version for your pfp because it looks quite inconsistent...

[@chefscorner7063]

Well I know what I'm going to ask for from Santa this year! ;)

[@matthewmckever2312]

Can tannerite not be set off by a blasting cap?

[@falsedragon33]

Any primary will set it off. Most blasting caps are Cooper II nitrotetrazol. I use silver nitrotetrizol, which is sensitive to a fuse. Flash powder will not set it off.

[@coeurdelion1540]

Very intelligent young man.

[@highping1786]

Why no new vids?

[@devmeistersuperprecision4155]

Hang on here. Did you just say that ammonium nitrate is not an explosive but reactive oxidizer and requires a. A fuel to drive it? That would explain the use of diesel fuel in amfo. But then what fueled the huge explosion in Bretut? That was just a storage of ammonium nitrate right? According to you, it would have needed some mass of fuel to oxidize.

[@nebulysses7124]

Exactly. He is correct. And that's why I believe there was something else going on with that "accident." The official story just never made any sense to me.

[@ThadySenior]

Where are the slow mo guys when you need them?

[@ScienceC]

That would be some cool slomo footage

[@arttomaszewski5497]

Way to go. You get an A for your science class tutorial.

[@CoachLain]

Dude, you're Bottle Flip physics video has helped me explain the science behind some of the tumbling skills I teach! Thanks for making such fun and interesting content!!! Keep it up bro!!! 😎

[@HyperHyena88]

Oxidiser + Fuel + Starting Energy = BOOM . . . . Science is simple WAHOOO !

[@johndee2990]

2:50 isn't Aspartame an Aluminum Oxide? I think I found my Rocket Fuel..

[@jeeplove_8831]

It's not unknown. Simple answer is that powdered Aluminum is a fuel which is why it's mixed with the oxidizer, which in the proper ratios, produces a much faster and more sensitive reaction.

[@dark2023-1lovesoni]

Ammonal has a military history over 100 years old, the chemistry is well understood. I suspect the presenter just didn't fully understand it.

[@lapin46]

the Al merely adds heat to the reaction. AN can and will detonate by itself. It is just not very sensitive. There have been massive desasters of AN detonating without any added fuels, Beirut for example, but in Germany something similar happened in 1921 when 300-500 tones exploded killing 559 people. Search for “Oppau explosion “. The Al powered makes it more sensitive and increases power. The ammonia is the part that is oxidized by the nitrate. There is excess oxygen released that can further be used to oxidize fuel and/or al powder. Al power is commonly added as a booster to solid rocket fuels and AN based explosives. It does so by mainly creating a lot of heat, but no gases.

[@TheAndrew1987]

why are some countries blue on the map

[@merds77]

Explosion or implosion?

[@stevelux9854]

Would this be good for breaking up volcanic and igneous rock? I've got a hill, way out in the desert, that I need to break up for construction. I'm thinking of drilling holes in the rock and blasting the rock apart and using an old gun on a frame to ignite the explosion.

[@toonlinkspams8177]

It would be extremely inefficient, and probably more labor intensive (and possibly more expensive depending on how big the hill is) than getting permits and using conventional explosives.

[@toonlinkspams8177]

With that said, a skilled chemist could easily synthesize nitroglycerin using the ammonium nitrate and use that to make dynamite. Emphasis on “skilled chemist.” A novice chemist has a high likelihood of synthesizing a lab explosion.

[@falsedragon33]

@@toonlinkspams8177 you wouldn't use ammonia. It's easier to make the nitric acid out of potassium nitrate, and that's readily available. But you still need a primary unless you want to shoot it. Mixing up a few hundred ML of nitroglycerin and detonating with a tetrazole is pretty cool as the shockwave is intense. For pure boom, flash powder is king IMO.

[@falsedragon33]

For rock, mix flash, 70/30 Al with potassium perchlorate, and fill the crack. It does a pretty decent job. But it's pretty sensitive to mix. I have a saying: if you're going to do something stupid, don't do it stupidly. If you don't understand every aspect of the chemistry, then learn.

[@micaelani]

yess, new vid :D

[@muhammad2uneeb]

"A very happy shooter!" 😁

[@highschoolchemist2928]

you say it isn't illegal to make explosives but..."Under federal explosives law, it is illegal to manufacture, store, distribute, receive or transport explosive materials without a federal explosives license or permit". although I do know tannerite dosen't count if its under 50 lbs., just thought id point that out.

[@Darthdoodoo]

I've been trying to figure out how it works cuz i don't know shit about it and was worried about having it around the house if there was a fire or emergency

[@CJB1974-EveryEnemyINowHave]

What was your favorite experiment using your first chemistry set? Boiling over and bubbles. Kerosene and gun powder and fire poofta eyebrows gone, lashes gone. Pressurized hairspray cans empty, 💥 Paint cans empty, also very loud, 💥. Experiment safely. I recommend finding an old safe, some children enjoy things like that when computers are taken away. ... . . .

[@tymz-r-achangin]

Tannerite is like fireworks. Many states allow the sales of it, BUT those same many sates say you are not allowed to ignite or set off those things within their state. Here in the farm country of Ohio we dont give schit what the laws say to infringe on our right to have fun! We do what we want, how we want, when we want BUT with always keeping safety as our top priority

[@falsedragon33]

I like to use the Coach Cline rules from the movie Water Boy. What mamma don't know won't hurt her. Don't transport it though, especially flash. It's a mandatory domestic terrorist charge.

[@jeremykneeland5754]

[@David-k2x4c]

I'm fascinated with nuclear bombs and explosions. I'd like to hear this young man explain the science behind them. 😆💥

[@redbeardreturns3550]

This kid is the same kid that subed in a video for Tom Scott. Wow weird to see how he aged

[@Matowix]

Why did u leave

[@Seaprimate]

That looks like the Ocala National Forest range

[@elident7828]

I wonder if he’s had his first date yet ? But you’re very informative no joke thanks for the info provided in this post !

[@Injinct]

where are you?

[@WSYAGAMING]

I just got two lbs of tannerite for Christmas!!!

[@anomicxtreme]

Beirut was actually 2750 Tonnes, which is equivalent to 3030 tons.

[@Jesse_Golden]

Thank you #NewSubscriber

[@robot3507]

I miss you.

[@MrDsa04]

Goats

[@paranoidandroid7459]

Not bad

[@nathanielvansant7450]

I knownthis gun range very very well

[@robertwhitmer2935]

This guy could make nuclear war boring.

[@daikin7777]

What is ratio the best is?

[@MikeParrish-kw5xs]

You don't necessarily have to shoot it to set it off

[@jameswilson2604]

Magnesium powder makes much bigger boom

[@dolphincliffs8864]

I wonder what powdered zinc would do as well.

[@falsedragon33]

Mg is indeed a fine fuel but too sensitive to friction. Al/Mg is safer, but why? The aluminum in tannerite is more of a catalyst than a fuel.

[@wilurbean]

It's like grain and silos 😅

[@donm9951]

better to use nitromethane fro race track bigger boom'''''

[@johnvalencia7488]

My body makes Tannerite naturally whenever I eat at Taco Bell.

[@susanvaughn741]

Don’t forget the nitrate explosion in China. It disappeared the fire department.

[@willholly1844]

He's wrong. You don't need a permit to shoot tannerite unless it's for commercial purposes.

[@mitchellmitchell5268]

Tannerite. 6000 m/s ??🧐

[@stryker4240]

😢 like all good explosions,it's secondary...

[@tuckert7883]

👍

[@Judahmangi]

Based

[@Camwize]

Oh to be American!

[@GammaStyleGaming]

Well, in Sweden, everyththing is illegal

[@rparl]

Wasn't it also used OK City bombing?

[@ScienceC]

Yeah that was ANFO which is ammonium nitrate and fuel oil

[@rparl]

@@ScienceC Thanks. The ammonium nitrate fertilizer is about all I remembered.

[@thelakeman5207]

Down south, you can get tannerite at the local 7/11.

[@o_dubski]

AWESOME video, as usual!

[@derekhammond8610]

you can't make flash powder ever without a licence in any state so that's not true right off the bat.

[@harrypeterson9287]

You're obviously not aware of the fact that .22lr sensitive binary sold in stores is quite literally KClO4 and aluminum powder and if you weigh the contents of the two bags it works out to a 70/30 ratio which is the most ubiquitous flash powder mixture on the planet. ANY explosive whether it's a binary mixture like Tannerite or flash powder, or even synthesized high explosives like TNT, octanitrocubane or even TATP are federally legal to manufacture and detonate for personal, non commercial use so long as they are not stored for longer than necessary and are not transported. This information is readily available on the ATFs website. Stop spreading lies. You don't even know what you're talking about.

[@biohazard_613]

I must have missed the part about making flash powder, could you please explain what you are referring to?

[@derekhammond8610]

@@biohazard_613 atf.gov

[@harrypeterson9287]

@@biohazard_613 He's wrong, he also flagged my comment and it got deleted when I corrected him. .22 sensitive tannerite typically is just literal KClO4/Al flash powder.

[@derekhammond8610]

@@biohazard_613 why did the comments get deleted lol

[@bradlymiller7961]

Real men shoot ak-47! Good job

[@gutless8500]

Akm*

[@Andrew-sz4su]

I love when i click on a video and see my favorite gun range (ocala national forest)

[@garyweaver317]

It is illegal to manufacture explosive with no ATF license. If you glue a firecracker to a bottle rocket that is considered to be manufacture of illegal explosive with no license.

[@graemelawson5536]

Skyler gisondo