Ah, I see you are a fellow Tetryl enthusiast. I am, too, though the acute toxicity is a real shame, hence why its use was phased out. I mean, RDX and HMX are not exactly healthy either, but they are more powerful and stable, as well as possessing carbon monoxide and water vapor balanced decomposition equations and higher nitrogen content. Tetryl has a special place in my heart, though.
I do agree, Tetryl is a very neat little explosive with some interesting history behind it. Most Tetryl now, as you already know, has no purpose now other than remaining in some legacy munitions and other old ordnance. As you’ve said, RDX and HMX has completely replaced it in all of its previous appliances. Tetryl was quite neat, its legacy will continue.
I recently made cyclopentanone using this same method. YMMV, but I found that using barium carbonate at 10g per 100g adipic acid made for a smoother run and gave higher yields (~89% on one run and ~92% on another).
Nice! My second distillation I actually didn’t have quite 200 grams left and I totally agree. That one went a bit smoother. I also noticed with that second run with less Adipic acid, there was much less left in the flask and it didn’t seem to be as gnarly to clean!
I have seen cubane available to buy in a couple of places on ebay in the past, would you consider buying some so you can test the properties of the various cubanes you want to make? I assume that the final yield is going to be pretty small and you'd probably want to keep that as a bit of a trophy.
I’d love to but the budget is a bit tight after buying stuff for the photo reactor and I’m not too sure I’d trust an eBay source for Cubane. Of course it’s available on Sigma for only $600 per gram! Lol
👍
Tom looks a little different today lol
Ah, I see you are a fellow Tetryl enthusiast. I am, too, though the acute toxicity is a real shame, hence why its use was phased out. I mean, RDX and HMX are not exactly healthy either, but they are more powerful and stable, as well as possessing carbon monoxide and water vapor balanced decomposition equations and higher nitrogen content. Tetryl has a special place in my heart, though.
I do agree, Tetryl is a very neat little explosive with some interesting history behind it. Most Tetryl now, as you already know, has no purpose now other than remaining in some legacy munitions and other old ordnance. As you’ve said, RDX and HMX has completely replaced it in all of its previous appliances. Tetryl was quite neat, its legacy will continue.
I recently made cyclopentanone using this same method. YMMV, but I found that using barium carbonate at 10g per 100g adipic acid made for a smoother run and gave higher yields (~89% on one run and ~92% on another).
Nice! My second distillation I actually didn’t have quite 200 grams left and I totally agree. That one went a bit smoother. I also noticed with that second run with less Adipic acid, there was much less left in the flask and it didn’t seem to be as gnarly to clean!
I have seen cubane available to buy in a couple of places on ebay in the past, would you consider buying some so you can test the properties of the various cubanes you want to make? I assume that the final yield is going to be pretty small and you'd probably want to keep that as a bit of a trophy.
I’d love to but the budget is a bit tight after buying stuff for the photo reactor and I’m not too sure I’d trust an eBay source for Cubane. Of course it’s available on Sigma for only $600 per gram! Lol