Introduction - Liquid Explosives - page 10

sensitivity [ 17 ], desensitizers to reduce risk sensitivity, cryoprotectants to lower the
freezing point, gelling agents to raise consistency in gelatinization process, and
others to achieve complete explosion and improve the explosion work. The typical
thickening method [ 23 ] of nitric acid based liquid explosives is to stably disperse
carbon-white particles into liquid explosives. When the amount of the solid parti-
cles reaches a certain proportion, fluxility of liquid explosives would be

decreased to be of paste because of the continuous decrease of liquid phase and the
alteration of interfacial force. Such thickened liquid explosives exhibit excellent
waterproof effect. A descent of only 1.0 cm was found after contact with water for
53 h. The transmitted detonation property is exceedingly good and the sensitivity is
reduced. When the liquid explosives are stored in plastic tubes with different
diameters for 180 d, the plastic tubes would become harder and the detonation
velocity would be slightly increased.
For nitric acid-based liquid explosives, macromolecule monomers, which would
be cross-linked to form network structure, are used in thickening methods [ 24 ]. The
initiator should be capable of generating free radicals at low temperatures in the
course of the reaction. Ammonium peroxydisulfate is able to be an initiator. The
initial radial reaction is given as:

the fl

The generated radicals could be involved in a cross-linking polymerization
reaction. Acrylamide and N,N ′ -methylene bisacrylamide would be adopted in the

formulation to play roles of adjusting oxygen balance and lowering acidity, and
thus to increase the storage period.

1.4 Applications of Liquid Explosives

1.4.1 Mining and Industrial Applications

(1) Mining
In mining, a liquid explosive can be injected directly into boreholes and deto-
nated by a detonator inserted at the center of the liquid explosive. If a detonating
cord is used for detonating, it should be buttered and the explosive should be
waterproofed to ensure the reliability of explosive initiation [ 25 , 26 ].
Most of liquid explosives, in practice, can be successfully detonated in mining
operations, whatever in hard rocks or water holes, with a favorable detonation
property. In comparison with condensed explosives, liquid explosives have distinct
advantages to be used in the bursting of extremely hard rocks and multi-waterholes.