Request for Fertilizer in Iraq - Urea Safety Question
Question:
EOD (Explosive Ordnance) individuals that claim they can convert any fertilizer into an explosive. This perception is limiting the availability of fertilizer in the region. It is well-known that the fertilizer Ammonia Nitrate and the ease can cause explosion, but the specific issue in this region is using Urea as fertilizer. From my research Urea CO(NH2)2 is a strongly bonded chemical compound and would required significant chemistry to convert into an explosive. Can Urea be made into an explosive? If it can be made into an explosive can that be done using kitchen equipment or is complex lab required? Are there specific chemicals that are required and can these chemical be controlled?
Currently the one SF (Special Forces) gentlemen has located a large quaintly of Urea on an Iraqi farm and is periodically taking bags of the fertilizer and dumping these into the nearby canal. In the same general area due to the danger of insurgency the Ag manger has not been able to operate the only Ag supply warehouse and it has been empty of any fertilizer since 2006. It is desired to present the need to open the fertilizer supply chain. If Urea is a potential hazard, one solution has is to mix it with clay. Another solution is to import low grade fertilizer. Two Urea manufacturing plants exist in Iraq. All other forms of fertilizer must be shipped into the country. While other forms of nitrogen have less likelihood of being made into an explosive it does cost much more to ship bulky material and to purchase from overseas dealers. There is potential of manufacturing ammonium sulfate here in Iraq due to the sulfur by products from the refining process used in Iraq; but it will be some time before that process can be brought into the county.
My specific question is nitric acid a controlled substance in Iraq and what restrictions and safe guards are in place within Iraq for shipment and storage of nitric acid? This chemical is an industrial commodity that has little commercial use except for making explosives from nitrogen compounds. The control of nitric acid would mitigate the potential of IEDs made from fertilizer and enable the use of the low cost Urea fertilizer. Nitric acid is used in manufacturing of explosives including nitroglycerin, trinitrotoluene (TNT) and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), as well as fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate. Also, in ICP-MS and ICP-AES techniques, nitric acid (with a concentration from 0.5% to 2.0%) is used as a matrix compound for determining metal traces in solutions. Ultrapure acid is required for such determination, because small amounts of metal ions could affect the result of the analysis. It has additional uses in metallurgy and refining as it reacts with most metals, and in organic syntheses. When combined with hydrochloric acid, it forms aqua regia, one of the few reagents capable of dissolving gold and platinum.
Why is nitrogen fertilizer important? It is a basic plant food necessary for the Agricultural industry to improve production of crops. For example current Diyala wheat production is approximately 240-300 Kg per Donum. This is one half or less what production would be under good management which includes the use of nitrogen fertilizer. If the use of Urea fertilizer cannot be safely made available in Iraq or certain provinces are unable to provide the increased security on the transport and storage of the fertilizer and the control of the Nitric acid, the chemical necessary to convert Urea to an explosive, then the Agriculturists need to have a policy to use substitute fertilizers. In addition the industry section of OPA/PRT need to consider encouraging the country to manufacture other formulations of nitrogen compounds.
Bottom line is, whether is possible to recommend using Urea in Diyala or not? This supposed to be a country wide policy decision for the development of the industry.
Response:
The first response states that Urea Nitrate, not Urea per se, is a highly feared explosive. Urea is a natural excretion of mammals, including humans, so a keen maker of Urea Nitrate need not necessarily get hold of the fertilizer. See
http://www.freewebs.com/lpumsun/ureanitrate2.html for methods of making its crystals from the fertilizer as well as from human urine (called an Advanced Method!!!).
As you see from the above site's recipes, highly concentrated Nitric Acid is required to make Urea Nitrate. This is the key ingredient that must be controlled. I hope this information will help David make a decision. As a reminder, urea offers the following Advantages as a nitrogen source fertilizer (per USDA/NRCS and other sources):
· High N (46%)
· Inexpensive
· Easy to handle
· Can be put in water, dilution keeps pH down
· Low salt index (26.7)
· Volatility losses lower than anhydrous ammonia
· The disadvantages include:
· Being highly soluble and leachable (= high losses in sandy soil)
· Can raise soil pH, although it hydrolyzes into ammonia quite quickly
· May undergo high volatility losses
The other answer could state that ammonium nitrate can be mixed to keep it from being used as an explosive. This can touch also how unstable the nitric acid is that would be needed to convert urea into urea nitrate.
It has been checked with IFDC's lab division and the best way to keep ammonium nitrate from being an explosive is to mix it with 40% ammonium sulphate. That was the solution in Northern Ireland.
Urea is not an explosive but can be converted to urea nitrate using nitric acid but that is difficult to do and the resulting compound is very unstable - about like nitro glycerine.
There is some active research on ammonium nitrate to keep it from being an explosive at present. The suggestion is that urea can be used as a nitrogen fertilizer as a first choice and if that is not possible go to 40% ammonium sulfate mixed into the ammonium nitrate. It is not sure how happy the Army would be about mixing ammonium nitrate with ammonium sulphate because this would mean having ammonium nitrate around that could come up missing.
There are several approaches.
1) use ammonium sulfate
2) add significant quantities of phosphorus and or potassium chloride) This will form a dirty form and limit the chain reaction. It is best if it is pelleted together. A very good chemist could figure out the
solubilities and densities and do a slurry separation method (but this is not going to be done by your average individual in a garage)
3) mix the urea and ammonium nitrate together and form UAN liquid In theory you can chill this and salt out the ammonium nitrate and urea at different temperatures
Urea has a lot more processing to do in order to make it an explosive. First off, the normal approach is to form a urea-nitrate complex. This is done blending nitric acid with urea and results in a very powerful explosive similar or greater than TNT. As a result, mixing other reagents or fertilizers in with the urea will not have the same "chain blocking" approach as it would with nitrate salts and fuel oil. Nitric acid can be formed using ammonia or via several reactions with copper and nitrate salts.
Urea based fertilizers can be converted into explosives with the use of nitric acid. Thus making a urea nitrate explosive with a higher yield than ANFO. As a reference, this type of explosive was used during the World Trade Center bombing in the 1990's. The more difficult N only fertilizers to make into explosives are UAN (urea ammonium nitrate) which is a liquid at room temperature, and 83-0-0 (anhydrous ammonia) which is a pressurized liquid which boils at temperatures above -80F. With the proper refrigeration system, UAN could be separated out into its urea and ammonium nitrate parent materials. The anhydrous ammonia is very difficult to work with due to temperatures and requires significant chemistry to oxidize it and handle the extreme hydrothermic reactions.
Everyone may agree that urea is not as safe as people have been led to believe. This doesn't mean that it can't be made even more difficult to make into an explosive, it is not something that could be made in the kitchen. The introduction of highly soluble salts into the material will prevent the continuous chain reaction of NO3- ion destruction to O2 and N2, effectively preventing it from being used as an explosive. Blending and better yet, peeling the material together with 50% potassium chloride (0-0-60) should be more than adequate to prevent all but the most technical and industrially motivated from getting it back to an explosive feedstock.
