What are the reaction products of flash powder made from ammonium nitrate and sucrose? Is the unbalanced equation C6H12O6+(NH4)2NO3->CO2+H2O+NO2? The NO2 is the component I'm uncertain about. Since the oxidation is being done by ammonium nitrate, maybe I'm also wrong about CO2 and H2O, which are just the familiar products of simple oxidation by burinig in air. What goes on the RHS of the above equation?
What are the reaction products of flash powder made from ammonium nitrate and sucrose? Is the unbalanced equation C6H12O6+(NH4)2NO3->CO2+H2O+NO2?
1) It's not "flash powder." 2) Good luck getting it to burn at all. 3) combustion reactions are seldom "balanced" in the sense you'd see with aquatic percipitation reactions. You need something complex like propep to pick the likely products of the reaction, and it's going to be pressure dependent and include "incomplete" reaction products like CO. 4) NO2 is nasty stuff, and very reactive (dissolve in water and get nitric acid, more or less. Don't let it happen in your lungs!) It's not a likely reaction product. 5) properly catalyzed AN decomposition ends up yielding moleculer nitrogen. Heating AN can yield nitrous oxide (N2O). So those are likely to show up as well... (this is not a good way to make N2O for getting "high." Those other nitrogen oxides (the ones that turn into nitric acid in your lungs) show up as impurities.)BillW
How right you are, Bill...Comb, while trial and error MAY be the most "high-impact" method of learning, it really has no place in the field of propusion mechanics. Although, if you must 'experiment' to find reactionary by-products, do the research first...read up! Then, when you feel confident you know the facts, read AGAIN! And always use the necessary safety gear to protect you in the case of any possible miscalculation and/or mishap. Remember, in the field of Am/Ex, if you become a statistic, you hurt the hobby as a whole, not just yourself. Be careful, and good luck! Bob352
C6H12O6 is sugar and NH4NO3 is the correct formula for ammonium nitrate. Mixtures of the two can be a rocket propellant or an explosive, but it's definately not flash powder.
C6H12O6 when oxidized fully it goes to 6 CO2 + 6 H20. You need and additional 6 O2 to get there.
NH4NO3 is the oxygen source. It decomposes fully to N2 + 2 H2O + 1/2
So to get the stochiometric combustion equation combine the two and cancel the O2 from both sides and you get the following.
C6H12O6 + 6 O2 --> 6 CO2 + 6 H20
12 NH4NO3 --> 24 H2O + 12 N2 + 6 O2 _______________________________________________________________C6H12O6 + 12 NH4NO3 --> 6 CO2 + 30 H2O + 12 N2
Bob
My Comb wrote:
Sucrose is a 12-carbon sugar - its formula is C12H22O11. Lactose is also a
12-carbon sugar,C12H22O11.H2O (sometimes given as C12H24O12).The common six-carbon sugars are glucose and fructose.
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