The culprit of the big explosion in Lebanon

At about 6 pm local time on August 4, a violent explosion occurred in the port area of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. According to local media reports in Lebanon, the explosion has killed more than 100 people, injured more than 4,000 people and displaced 300,000 people. The government expects the death toll to increase.

Lebanese officials said that the explosion was caused by 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the warehouse. These ammonium nitrate have been stored in the warehouse for six years.

2700 tons of ammonium nitrate, if it causes an explosion, is equivalent to a small tactical nuclear bomb in the port.

So what exactly is ammonium nitrate? In fact, it is an ammonium salt, colorless, odorless, transparent or white crystal, which is characterized by explosive decomposition when subjected to violent impact or heating. Mainly used in fertilizers and chemical raw materials.

1659, the German J.R. Glauber's salt was first made into ammonium nitrate. /kloc-at the end of 0/9 century, Europeans produced ammonium nitrate from ammonium sulfate and Chilean saltpeter. Later, chemist Fritz Haber put forward the idea that hydrogen combines with nitrogen in the atmosphere to produce ammonia. This was later called "Haber-Bos ammonia production". By 19 13, BASF Chemical Company of Germany has established a plant with a daily output of 30 tons of ammonia and synthetic ammonium nitrate.

By World War II, ammonium nitrate had already become the basic material for making explosives. After World War II, ammonium nitrate caused the most serious industrial explosion accident in American history.

1947 In the early morning of April 16, a cargo ship named Grand Camp caught fire and detonated 2300 tons of ammonium nitrate on board. The explosion shattered the hull and blew tobacco, hemp rope, heavy oil and the remaining bags containing ammonium nitrate to an altitude of 600 to 900 meters. Fireballs lit up the whole sky. The explosion triggered a 4.5-meter-high tsunami, which washed up on the dock and flooded the surrounding area. Windows in Houston were shattered 64 kilometers away, and people in Louisiana felt the earthquake 400 kilometers away. The explosion killed about 600 people and injured more than 3,500 people.

This did not allow the United States to supervise it, because it has an absolute advantage in meeting the nutritional needs of crops.

However, many people still use ammonium nitrate as explosive because of its explosive particularity and availability as fertilizer. 200 1 An explosion caused by ammonium nitrate occurred in Shijiazhuang, China, causing hundreds of casualties. Since then, ammonium nitrate has been listed as the control object in China.

Although controlled, it still has an identity, that is, chemical raw materials. Even if you are not careful, it will still cause accidents. In August of 20 15, such an explosion occurred in the dangerous goods warehouse of Tianjin Hairui Company in China, and 165 people were killed. The reason is that in high temperature weather, the spontaneous combustion of nitrocellulose leads to the large-scale combustion of chemicals such as nitrocellulose in adjacent containers, and the resulting high temperature leads to the explosion of dangerous chemicals such as ammonium nitrate accumulated in the arrival area.

I hope not to repeat the previous tragedy. Every accident is shocking, and every scene is a lesson of blood and tears.