It says so in the movie Fight Club, but I know not to trust everything I hear from movies. Hence…
Can it really make nitroglycerine?
Not as far as I know. Commercially, nitroglycerin is prepared from glycerine, nitric acid and sulphuric acid, and must be kept cool during the process, because the reactions are exothermic (heat-producing). I doubt that concoction would make much of any explosive, since OJ concentrate isn’t an oxidizer, nor is it particularly flammable. The best one could hope for is a sort of cheap napalm, though even that’s doubtful.
No.
From the IMDB trivia for Fight Club:
You know, I could spout a lot of chemistry here. but I think the best thing I could do for the SDMB would to try it, under various conditions.
He said it was to make napalm, not nitroglycerine.
Is the nitroglycerine recepie legitimate? That is, skim a layer of glycerin off of rendered fat, mix with nitric acid?
I know the recepies aren’t supposed to work, but that one just seems a lot more plausible, chemically speaking.
You’ve got to have sulphuric acid in the mix too. It’s tricky, and involves ice baths and such.
Back from trial #1: thus far, it seems it’d make a piss-poor ham glaze, and practically nothing else.
Maxim magazine (a bastion of scientific inquiry, to be sure) once had an article about gimmicks and gadgets in movies. I seem to recall that the Gas\OJ thing worked, but that the ratios were wrong. I can’t remmeber if the version mentioned in the movie wasn’t sticky enough or wasn’t combustible enough… Maybe someone with back issues can answer??
Right. Napalm. I thought not.
Nitration isn’t terribly difficult, but the method in the movie isn’t entirely sound. In the book, they discuss making nitroglycerin several times. Sometimes they mention using sulfuric acid, sometimes they don’t. One notable flaw is that they suggest that epsom salts can be used as a ‘source of sulfate’ for the nitration. This is wrong. Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) can be used as a source of sulfate, but that’s not the role of sulfuric acid in the nitration reaction. Sulfuric acid is used as a proton source – as a strong acid, and not a source of sulfate. Sulfate is a spectator ion that doesn’t participate in the reaction.
Another problem is the scene where the narrator gets lye on his hand. Tyler says ‘you can go to the sink and run water over it’, then goes off talking all badass about how that would be stupid and result in further injury. (I think the author’s argument has something to do with the reaction being exothermic.) Tyler, being a genius as well as a badass, suggests using vinegar. This is not recommended procedure. The correct treatment for chemical burns is always flushing the affected area with large amounts of water. Using an acid to neutralize the base is highly unwise. It takes a lot of 5% acetic acid to neutralize even a relatively small amount of a strong base such as NaOH, and the reaction is still exothermic. The burn occurs so quickly that there’s really no time to worry about neutralizing the base. The best thing to do is dilute it and rinse it off.
Using movies as a source of information, truth, philosophical wisdom, or life direction is often a bad idea. I wouldn’t write it off completely, but the odds are not so hot.
I guess if you really want to make a known deadly potion just try mixing bleach and ammonia. And like Pooh, you too can be a bear of very little brain.
Seriously though, don’t try that mixture. It really is very dangerous.
Not to steal Cecil’s Thunder, but perhaps the “MythBusters” (US TLC TV show) should take this one.
yeah I know when I was in the 4th grade I decided to see what I could make with the stuff under the sink. I was hoping to make something make a model valcano for school with. First it started to boil and I thought whoa it works followed by hack hack coff coff, and running to my mom whom flushed it and called poison control. There solution? a glass milk and a hot shower.
Q.E.D. nailed it
May have well have finished the deal by mentioning the baking soda and salt bath to stabilize the stuff.
Of course this is of no use unless you have a cap to set it off. Acetone, hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid should do it.
I do believe that experimentation is legal in a few areas, so check your local laws and still then do not try it. Extreme danger!
I remember reading in th3e anarchists cookbook (although everyone knows half that stuff doesnt work) that you could put styrofoam in gasoline and that was supposed to make napalm but I doubt it works
gasoline and styrofoam: it works. Lots of Styrofoam, little bit of Gasoline. It also burns nice n hot. When we were kids, we poured a little on the parking lot of my school and lit it in the middle of December (probably around 15 degrees F). After the blacktop started boiling we decided to leave.