Plants like West Fertilizer Co. Producing fertilizer involves treating raw materials to either purify them or increase their concentration, changing them into plant-available forms, and frequently combining materials so they contain multiple nutrients, according to IFIA.
There have been other explosions at fertilizer plants, including one on Sept. About tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 29 and injuring at least 2, It shattered windows up to 5 kilometres away, and resulted in about 40, insurance claims.
Ammonium nitrate, sometimes referred to by the initials AN, is a chemical compound that's most often seen in the form of white granules. It can be easily made in a lab by reacting nitric acid with ammonia. AN is used in fertilizers because of its high nitrogen content.
It was once the top nitrogen fertilizer in the world, though it has since been supplanted by higher-concentration urea. In , AN accounted for about 15 per cent of all nitrogen fertilizers used around the globe. On its own, ammonium nitrate is benign, but when mixed with certain hydrocarbons, such as fuel oil, it can become a powerful explosive. Such a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil is commonly called ANFO, and is often used as an explosive in industrial applications like mining and construction.
Detection markers, such as chemical additives, can help law enforcement officers find explosives before a blast. Identification taggants -- for example, particulate additives containing coded information -- are used to determine a bomb's origins before or after detonation. About 2, illegal bombings occur annually in the United States, but only a small percentage involve loss of life, injuries, or significant property damage. Although seldom used in such bombings, commercial "high explosives" -- which include dynamite and ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil -- can have devastating consequences, particularly in large bombs.
The most frequently used materials are commercial "low explosives," such as gunpowder and fillers commonly found in fireworks. Black and smokeless powders -- low explosives which are used in about one-third of all illegal bombings -- were excluded from the committee's study and are being similarly assessed by another National Research Council committee.
A Strategy for Controlling Illegal Use of Explosives The problem of illegal bombings is difficult to address from a policy perspective, the report notes. About 5 billion pounds of commercial high explosives are used annually in the United States for legitimate purposes, but the quantity used in illegal bombings is small.
Policy measures that attempt to address the illegal use of explosives will inevitably impinge on everyday commerce, the committee said. Complying with new regulations also could be costly for the private sector and consumers. But if terrorist bombings were to increase substantially, the savings in lives, property damage, and enhanced security could justify the costs. Given these concerns, the committee called for the federal government to sponsor research to develop safe taggants for possible future use and to be ready to adopt progressively stronger measures to deter terrorist bombings, based on federal policy-makers' assessments of threats to public safety.
However, it affirmed a recommendation by the United Nations' Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO , which called for the use of chemical detection markers in plastic and sheet explosives to allow for better detection by currently available commercial equipment.
After the downing of Pan Am Flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, 34 countries, including the United States, ratified a convention requiring the marking of these explosives. The international convention must be approved by one more nation to enter into force, but already has been implemented by the United States.
The committee also recommended deploying explosive detection equipment more widely -- and developing better equipment to detect unmarked explosives -- in facilities other than airports, such as federal courthouses, large public buildings, and power plants.
How dangerous is ammonium nitrate? Frantic search for survivors of deadly explosion Dozens dead and thousands injured, health minister says. What caused the mushroom cloud? How dangerous are the gases produced? Is it used in bombs? Has anything like this happened before? In , about 4, tonnes of ammonium nitrate caused an explosion at a plant in Oppau, Germany, killing more than people The deadliest industrial accident in US history occurred in at Galveston Bay, Texas.
At least people were killed when more than 2, tonnes of the chemical detonated on-board a ship which had docked in the port More recently, an explosion involving ammonium nitrate and other chemicals killed people in the port of Tianjin northern China in If a lot of energy is needed to split the two nitrogen atoms and break those bonds, then, conversely, a lot of energy is given off when two nitrogen atoms come together to make the bond.
The nitrogen atoms go from a less stable, high-energy state such as in NO 3 or NH 4 , to a very stable, low-energy state such as in N 2 , with the excess energy being released very rapidly, even explosively. Another concern is the gas that was stored at the plant. Ammonium nitrate is most commonly made from anhydrous ammonia gas; the Dallas News reports that fifty-four thousand pounds of the gas were stored at the plant. When this happens in the body, the reaction can cause fluid to accumulate in the lungs, irritation of the large airways bronchitis , inflammatory lung disease, and severe corrosive damage or burns to the mouth, throat, and stomach.
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