Ionic polymers open door to greener, safer explosives

Chemistry World ^ | 13 January 2012 | Phillip Broadwith

[neverdem]

Ionic Polymers as a New Structural Motif for High-Energy-Density Materials

[HiTech RedNeck]

'We wanted to make an optically activated material,' explains Hope-Weeks, 'so that if, for example, a bomb squad want to blow up a car they suspect has a terrorist device inside, they would have something they could remotely place under the car and then activate it with a laser, rather than someone having to go in there and wire it up.'

Hoo boy, it would seem safer to have something with a string you could pull. Granted not likely someone's going to be playing around with a laser pointer there, but still....

[LukeL]

Is this like how we need safer bullets?

[DarthVader]

bookmark

[Thebaddog]

Am I nuts, or are they giving the goods away to the bad guys?

[HiTech RedNeck]

There are so many publicly known ways to make explosives today, green or brown. A suicide bomber is hardly going to worry about a little mercury. BUT — if this is a new, more powerful stuff than anything known before, or easier to sneak on an airplane, that might be a problem.

[Squantos]

Thanks Doc.....

[momincombatboots]

I tell my liberal friends I am very a environmentally aware recycler, I kill with a crossbow. Their minds are so fun to play with.

[TigersEye]

I hope their green explosives work better than Diamond green-headed Green Strike Anywhere kitchen matches. They suck. One out of three just fizzle without ever creating a flame and that’s striking them on the box.

[ronnie raygun]

So I guess the tree huggers and the jihadist symathizers will be happy to know that the terrorists now can be green, safe and more humaine while the victims can rest easier knowing thier murderers are compliant with government regulations.

[Tainan]

things that go boom ping

[phockthis]

sfl

[IMR 4350]

Try telling them you only kill baby seals with a wooden club and with them blow out their doughnut.

[TXnMA]

Hmmm -- seems I have seen this incomprehensible post elsewhere this morning...

(Not questioning the premise -- just that of the senseless expression thereof...) Please re-state WTH you were trying to say -- in good clear English.

[bert]

[momincombatboots]

I like that.. it has a neanderthal environmentalist slant to it. :) So I guess we will call it “ethically sourced wood”.

[neverdem]

Am I nuts, or are they giving the goods away to the bad guys?

This stuff is about as stable as the compound made from acetone and hydrogen peroxide by the jihadi bombmakers who lose their hands in the process. It's more like fulminate of mercury used in primers for small arm cartridges. Using it as the main charge isn't too smart. Since chemistry was my major in college, I wanted to see nickel hydrazine perchlorate's formula and structure, but I had no luck, even at ChemSpider.

While scanning those Yahoo links, I found that Hope-Weeks's lab was working under a Dept. of Homeland Security contract, IIRC. Hope-Weeks gave instructions to her grad students not to make more than 100 milligrams of it at a time. That's one tenth of a gram. One idiot decided to make 10 grams of it, IIRC. He was left handed, and lost three fingers from his left hand after he started using a mortar and pestle on it!

[Squantos]

Printed out for future confusion.....:o)

Grateful....

[Squantos]

If was easy ......:o)

[Thebaddog]

Thanks. There’s a lot of intillectual horsepower here.