I thought that ammonium nitrate was an oxidizer, not an explosive in itself. It needs to be mixed with something like a petrolatum product to actually explode.
Oxidizers can explode under the right circumstances -
See West Texas or Galveston where bulk AN detonated when exposed to fire. Some reports are saying it was sodium nitrate (more consistent with the color of the smoke than AN) and that is also a strong oxidizer known as saltpeter. When there are large amounts it creates confinement just by the size/weight of the pile and if you expose it to fire bad things can happen.
Molten Alumimum from the fire probably came in contact with pile of ammonium Nitrate. crude Ammonal
Exactly. Ammonium nitrate is benign by itself. It needs to br treated with fuel oil to become explosive. This was most likely 2700 tons of Weapons grade ANFO. That had the explosive power of a small nuke.
No, ammonium nitrate blows up just fine by itself. It produces oxygen when it explodes, so if you mix it with a fuel like diesel or even sawdust, you get an even bigger bang, because oxygen at high pressure and temperature will cause any fuel to explode.
SHHhhh...
“I thought that ammonium nitrate was an oxidizer, not an explosive in itself. It needs to be mixed with something like a petrolatum product to actually explode.”
yep, and it has to be exactly the right proportions and it has be very finely mixed ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO