How do you get more explosive?

Answer 1

C-4 (composition 4) is one of the popular plastic explosive(explosive chemical mix with plastic binder). It has 2 important advantages:

1. The explosive material which coated with plastic binder will make it less sensitive to heat and shock. Since it is stabilized, it is relatively safe to handle C-4. Only detonator or blasting cap can trigger the reaction. Lighting the C-4 with a match will just make it burn slowly, like a piece of wood. (In Vietnam, soldiers actually burn C-4 as an improvised cooking fire.) Even shooting the explosive with rifle won't trigger the reaction.
2. C-4 material is highly flexible. It can be molded into different shapes to change the direction of the explosion.

Explosive material in C-4 is cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine (royal demolition explosive / RDX). Cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine was first prepared in 1899 from nitric acid and methenamine by Henning. The flow chart below (PLease refer to reference below) shows the synthesis method uses methenamine (hexamethylenetetramine).

Besides the method above, cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine can also be synthesized from formaldehyde, ammonium nitrate and acetic anhydride. (Method developed by Ross and Schiessler' in 1940's)

Normally, C-4 is made up of explosives, plastic binder, plasticizer and, usually, marker or taggant chemicals such as 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane (DMDNB) to help detect the explosive and identify its source. In 2004, Kenneth E. Lee discovered a reformulation of composition C-4 explosive for superior energetic performance and flexibility. (US Patent: 6887324)

Reference:

How C-4 explosive is made. Life Chemistry. Retrieved June 30, 2008, from http://life-chemistry.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-c-4-explosive-is-made.HTML

Answer 2

An explosive is made by mixing a fuel (eg sugar) with a chemical that contains an awfully lot of oxygen in it (usually an salt of Nitrogen). When set off the nitrogen returns to being a gas and the oxygen is free to burn the fuel (releasing more gas in the form of carbon dioxide). Thus a little piece of solid substance it almost instantaneously converted into a huge volume of hot gasses. This is what causes the explosion.

Answer 3

Well, I do this for a living- but there are some questions we do not answer on WikiAnswers. For really good reasons. First, I hold several licenses from government agencies that allow me to do that. Without those licenses, it is highly illegal to make explosives. By highly illegal, I mean 10 years in prison illegal. Second, working with explosives has an element of danger. MAKING explosives- even professionally, has a much higher degree of danger. We do not give answers that can get people killed, blow their fingers off, destroy their house, their neighbor's house, etc. Sorry-