The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

NITRO DERIVATIVES OF NAPHTHALENE 157
The purified material consists of fine needle crystals which melt
at about 220° and have the clean appearance of a pure substance
but actually consist of a mixture of isomers.
None of the nitrated naphthalenes is very sensitive to shock.
a-Nitronaphthalene is not an explosive at all and cannot be
detonated. Dinitronaphthalene begins to show a feeble capacity
for explosion, and trinitronaphthalene stands between dinitrobenzene
and dinitrotoluene in its explosive power. Tetranitronaphthalene
is about as powerful as TNT, and distinctly less
sensitive to impact than that explosive. Vennin and Chesneau
report that the nitrated naphthalenes, charged in a manometric
bomb at a density of loading of 0.3, gave on firing the pressures
indicated below. 46
KILOS PER SQUARE CENTIMETER
Mononitronaphthalene 1208
Dinitronaphthalene 2355
Trinitronaphthalene 3275
Tetranitronaphthalene 3745
The nitrated naphthalenes are used in dynamites and safety explosives,
in the Favicr powders, grisounites, and naphtalites of
France, in the cheddites which contain chlorate, and for military
purposes to some extent in mixtures with ammonium nitrate or
with other aromatic nitro compounds. Street, 47 who proposed
their use in cheddites, also suggested a fused mixture of mononitronaphthalene
and picric acid for use as a high explosive.
Schneiderite, used by France and by Italy and Russia in shells
during the first World War, consisted of 1 part dinitronaphthalene
and 7 parts ammonium nitrate, intimately incorporated together
by grinding in a black powder mill, and loaded by compression.
A mixture (MMN) of 3 parts mononitronaphthalene and? parts
picric acid, fused together under water, was used in drop bombs
and was insensitive to the impact of a rifle bullet. A mixture
(MDN) of 1 part dinitronaphthalene and 4 parts picric acid
melts at about 105-110°; it is more powerful than the preceding
and is also less sensitive to shock than picric acid alone. The
46 Vennin and Chesneau, "Les poudres et explosifs et les mesures de
securite dans les mines de houille," Paris and Liege, 1914, p. 269.
47 Mon. Sci., 1898, p. 495.