Explosive Situation at Pharmacy [2oz picric acid packed the punch of nearly half stick of dynamite]

abclocal.go.com ^ | 4-17-2007 | staff writer

[bedolido]

COLUMBUS, Wis. (AP) - April 17, 2007 - - It's not often that a bomb squad is asked to help clean up a pharmacy.

But experts say a 2-ounce sample of picric acid in the basement of Sharrow Drug Store packed the punch of nearly half a stick of dynamite.

Store employees found the sample Thursday as they were cleaning out old chemicals. Store owner Nick Sharrow is relieved that the local bomb squad safely destroyed the sample Friday, saying its explosive capability was stunning.

"This is very similar to TNT," Sharrow said.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Oh wahtever... jeez everything is deadly now...

[bedolido]

a quart of chocolate milk has the same affect on me... (lactose intolerant)

[buwaya]

Picric acid is not “everything”, it is a genuine high explosive - back in WWI it was commonly used as the explosive filling in artillery shells.

[wideminded]

I think picric acid used to have some medical uses a very long time ago. I once read that it was applied to the skin of some people who had been burned in the Hindenburg diaster.

[Joe 6-pack]

"The sample discovered on the basement shelf dated back to around World War I."

I don't feel so bad about the state of my storage shed anymore...

[CarrotAndStick]

Picric acid is the common term for the chemical compound 2,4,6-trinitrophenol, also known as TNP; the material is a yellow crystalline solid. Like other highly nitrated compounds (e.g. trinitrotoluene), picric acid is an explosive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid

[17th Miss Regt]

back in WWI it was commonly used as the explosive filling in artillery shells.

Picric acid was used as the primer for the propellant charge for some artillery rounds.

[CarrotAndStick]

Picric acid:

Tri-nitro-toluene(TNT):

[Gorzaloon]

Picric acid is not “everything”, it is a genuine high explosive - back in WWI it was commonly used as the explosive filling in artillery shells.

The ammonium salt was used in pyrotechnics. The burning rate of some of its mixtures is inversely proportional to pressure. As a column burns in a tube, it oscillates and produces the whistling sound heard in bottle rockets, etc. As the gas column gets longer, the tone drops in pitch, as it resonates like an organ pipe. Safer chemicals have been found that do the same thing now.

It is also used in some metallurgical etches.

It was used as a shell filler HE, but had a nasty habit of forming sensitive explosive compounds with many metals used in shells and fuzes. This produced embarrassment when they blew up in the muzzle, or in the back of an ammo truck.

[MeanWestTexan]

It’s a tissue fixative (glue). It’s yellow.

I have used a milder form on the ranch for years to help close up bulls (steers) post-castration.

[buwaya]

Shell filling too. A fair number of warships were destroyed in magazine explosions pre-and during WWI probably related to unstable explosives, and Picric Acid has the potential to become unstable if it is permitted to react with something.

[DBrow]

Picric acid is really a high explosive when dry. Damp, it’s not that much of a problem.

If you have a jar of it that’s old,it will dry out. They used to pack it in screw top jars- which means that if you have a crystal of picric under the threads,and it’s dry, unscrewing the jar to look at the pretty bright yellow crystals can cause the crystal in the threads to be ground, scraped,and squeezed, and it may go POP in a pretty way. This primary explosion may be enough to set off the whole jar.

This has happened in the past, so people are very careful with old jars and bottles of picric!

The stuff was common a decade or two ago as a chemical and a dye, and a stain for microscopy, so once in a while someone comes across an old container. Rather than find out if it’s dry and dangerous or moist and safe, people call the bomb squad, preferring to play it safe. I saw this done, they walked it outdoors and put it in a little bunker made of sandbags. They capped a piece of plastic explosive of some sort,stuck it to the jar, everybody backed off, and blam, up it went in a most impressive way.

[ElectricStrawberry]

Ding ding ding...we have a winner. We use this stuff as a liquid in the lab for fixing tissues so we can slice ‘em up and put ‘em on slides for our viewing pleasure.

There’s some fairly decent alternatives, but they don’t measure up for our purposes.

So long as it’s in liquid form, it’s rather benign....but once it dries....

[Mila]

When I worked in the chemistry department of a hospital lab, I used picric acid to make the reagent I used in performing a test to determine levels of blood creatinine. I remember the crystals as being a yellow color. I wonder if they still do that test, or if by now it’s passe.

[Fraxinus]

A fair number of warships were destroyed in magazine explosions pre-and during WWI probably related to unstable explosives

Picric acid played a part in destroying the town of Halifax also.

THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION: 6TH DECEMBER 1917.

[jordan8]

Picric acid was the first high explosive in standard use for artillery shells. The inside of the shells had to be coated to prevent the PA from coming into contact with the metal and forming primary explosive salts. It is the equal of TNT. PA and its fumes are somewhat poisonous. Picric acid was used throughout WW2 and perhaps beyond by some countries, particularly as filler for land mines and as a bulk explosive. You could probably have found examples of it in Vietnam. I think the U.S. didn’t produce it in quantity during WW2 because of its negative qualities and because other explosives were cheaper and easier to make.