Perastralite
Perastralit was a civil security explosive that was produced and sold by the Hoppecke explosives factory in Würgendorf . Perastralit was made from recycled war explosives from old artillery shells from the First World War with a composition of 90% German ammonal and 10% perdite . Mathematically, this resulted in the composition of 72% ammonium nitrate , 14.4% aluminum , 12.3% nitro bodies (mainly dinitrotoluene ), 1% potassium chlorate and 0.3% wood flour.
Explosion disaster in Oppau
Perastralit was used, among other things, to loosen firmly baked fertilizer salts such as ammonium sulfate nitrate at BASF in Oppau, where it was also used on the day of the explosion on September 21, 1921. As part of the investigations into the Oppau explosion, various cartridges from BASF's inventory were examined and it was found that the two starting substances were poorly mixed, which meant that strong deviations from the theoretical composition were possible.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d H. Karst: The explosion in Oppau on September 21, 1921 and the activities of the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt . Special edition. In: Journal for the entire gun and explosives industry . tape 21 , no. 1 , 1926, pp. 9-12 . On-line
- ↑ a b Tor E. Kristensen: A factual clarification and chemical-technical reassessment of the 1921 Oppau explosion disaster the unforeseen explosivity of porous ammonium sulfate nitrate fertilizer . In: Norwegian Defense Research Establishment / Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt (ed.): FFI-RAPPORT . No. 16/01508 , 2016, ISBN 978-82-464-2793-5 , pp. 28-29 (English).