Ap/anfo : The Home-Made Tool of Destruction

Pavel Atanasov

ENG101e

Fall semester

Professor Lubomir Terziev

29.10.2015

Process/analysis essay

AP/ANFO: The home-made tool of destruction

In the very beginning, I want to warn you that what I'm going to teach you is illegal, not to mention life-threatening. The responsibility if something goes wrong is entirely yours. Speaking as a certified specialist, I can assure you that if you follow correctly the steps I'm going to show, everything will go just fine. So please, before taking any action, bear this in mind!

I'm going to talk about the production and utilization of AP/ANFO. AP/ANFO is a powerful explosive which has found wide use in recent years. That's right, explosives - I realize exactly how bizarre this sounds, and, understandably enough, when most people hear this word, the associations are negative. Regrettably, these days the word explosive has become more or less a synonym for terrorism. Of course, it is in the nature of man to stay focused on the negative, but also sometimes it is not a bad thing to open our eyes to the positive. Here is a wonderful quote by one of the greatest chemists – Pierre Curie: “... Powerful explosives can help men perform admirable tasks. They are also a means to terrible destruction in the hands of the great criminals who lead peoples to war.” This says it all.

In general, the purpose of this essay is informative, but I secretly hope that someone who shares my passion for explosions will run into this text. If I manage to help a single person discover this self of his/hers that lies buried somewhere deep inside of him/her, then there will be nothing more than I could possibly ask for. I'll bet you dollars to donuts some people will point fingers at me for writing this. Others will make only a halfhearted attempt at reading it or will simply ignore it. Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings.

I would say that the process of making explosives is a creative process in the sense that given you are more advanced, you can start adding certain amounts of certain chemicals in order to enhance the qualities of your explosives. Nevertheless, I strongly advise you against whatever kind of deviation from the way that I'm going to present, unless you are a professional. Moreover, this process is not for the faint-hearted – it may just be too intense for this kind of people. Having said these things, I think we can start now.

The list of the required chemicals is as follows: ammonium nitrate, gasoline or diesel, acetone, 30% hydrogen peroxide, 37% hydrochloric acid, and sodium bicarbonate. Ammonium nitrate is predominantly used in agriculture as a fertilizer and therefore you can find it in each agricultural pharmacy in Bulgaria. Everyone knows where to find gasoline or diesel, so I'm not going to explain this. Pure acetone (also propanone or dimethyl ketone) is a bit tricky to find; instead, you can use nail polish remover as its main active ingredient is exactly acetone. Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide and finds use as an oxidizer and disinfectant; you can find it in almost every pharmacy. The most difficult chemical to find is undoubtedly the hydrochloric acid; you should buy it from a specialized store. And finally, you can find sodium bicarbonate in every grocery by the name baking soda.

Day 1. Now the interesting part begins. So the thing you should prepare on Day 1 is the so-called ANFO. In fact ANFO is an acronym for

Ammonium

Nitrate

Fuel

Oil.

This is a secondary (also called brisant) explosive with a comparatively low velocity of detonation. ANFO consists of 95,5% prilled ammonium nitrate and 4,5% gasoline(or diesel), and is widely used in mining and quarrying. It accounts for approximately 80% of the explosives used annually in North America. The making of this high explosive couldn't be much easier. You just need to mix the aforementioned ingredients and stir them uniformly and consistently; otherwise your ANFO might have significantly lower detonation velocity or it might even not detonate at all. Once you have finished, leave the mixture