Look what happens when you combine silicate chemistry with an active irrkjgination. How our little glass bubbles make explosives safer.
Sausages and slurries.
When Alfred Nobel discovered that you could make nitroglycerin considerably safer to handle by absorbing it in diatomaceous earth, the life expectancy of miners and other movers and shakers clicked sharply upward. Safety has never ceased to be of abiding interest to people who make and use things that explode. They constantly seek an explosive that will detonate in a controlled, predictable fashion precisely when they want it to— and not a millisecond before. ^^, ,#*%
As anyone who has ever had a cherry bomb ignite in his hand knows, it's not an easy task. But we're getting closer all the time. And Q-CEL® glass microspheres are helping.
The basic source of the bang in explosives these days is ammonium nitrate; it's dependable and inexpensive. You can mix the NH4NO3 with a variety of materials such as coals, oils, other carbonaceous materials and aluminum; organic nitrates and nitro compounds for sensitization; water; and a gelling agent, and you get a slurry which can be either factory-packed into a sausage or mixed in bulk at the site and pumped into place. The only problem is the sensitizers. They're relatively expensive; you have to use a good bit of them; and they're, uh, well, sensitive. Enter Q-CEL microspheres —little, 65-75 micron silicatesheathed bubbles of air. These are mixed into water-based slurries and dispersions of the explosive, replacing much of the sensitizers. What happens is, when a blasting cap initiates an explosion, a basically adiabatic compression occurs throughout the charge, causing an emphatically exothermic reaction and compression of the spheres. Things get very hot very quickly, and uniformly from one end of the charge to the other, producing lots of pressure and shattering action. Which is the whole idea. So you get the big bang you want, and eliminate a lot of expensive and sometimes hazardous and toxic materials in the bargain—replacing them with nothing more than little glass microspheres. We think Alfred Nobel would give a prize for that.
After l5Q^PHP9&vfe sti "
finding new usiélur otir silicates and other basic chemicals. And, after 150 years, we're still delivering them with consistent quality, at competitive prices. That's why you can rely on PQ.
The PQCorporation P.O. Box 840, Valley Forge, PA 19482
