Ammonal

Ammonal is an explosive mixture of ammonium nitrate, aluminium dust and stearic acid. It's misused since it uses ammonium nitrate as oxidizer and aluminium as fuel, but ammonium nitrate is a high explosive itself (though it's hard to detonate). It also has the problem of ammonium nitrate being highly hygroscopic. It burns when open, and detonates when confined.

Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is the chemical element in the periodic table with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. A silvery and ductile member of the poor metal group of elements, aluminium is found primarily as the ore bauxite and is remarkable for its resistance to oxidation (due to the phenomenon of passivation), its strength, and its light weight. Aluminium is used in many industries to make millions of different products and is very important to the world economy. Structural components made from aluminium are vital to the aerospace industry and very important in other areas of transportation and building in which light weight, durability, and strength

We have been thinking for a while now about using AN to synthesise NANO3 using NAOH because I live in a rural area it is easy for me to get AN ( I have a 1 tonne sack in my shed for the farm) and my interest in rockets requires lots of KNO3, which I just cant get.

I dissolved the AN 15% fertiliser (1kg) in a litre of water, and then added 150grams NAOH to this (as this should displace in a 1:1 ratio). This evolved high concentrations of ammonia gas (as expected). When all the NAOH was dissolved I simmered the solution at 60 degrees for 4 hours, this reduced the original litre to 275mls. I then poured 50mls of this solution into a flat plastic tray. this was left in the sun for a further hour. A large amount of white crystals had formed in the tray when I returned. I powdered these crystals, added 1/5th charcoal and then took a spoonful and stuck a match to it.

The result was a near complete combustion of the powder. The rest of this I use tomorrow. I hope to post some pictures soon and maybe some video. Finally, I looked through the posts and could not see anything that resembled this (not to sound kewlish) so I created a new thread for the sake of using AN for something other than high eplosives, and I think this is valuable for alot of people.

NH₄NO₃ is useful if you can get high mesh Al powder for rocket fuels, or if you want explosives. But for normal black powder you need KNO₃ or NaNO₃ if you are desparate. This method was devised for making large amounts of high purity KNO₃ from:

NH₄NO₃ + NaOH --> NH₄OH + NaNO₃

1:1 ratio then

NaNO₃ + KCl --> KNO₃ + NaCl

again 1:1 ratio

The way I see it if you have NH₄NO₃ then you can make KNO₃, from KNO₃ you can make all kinds of things; pyro or explosive. Nitric acid for example, and in the process like OEZO pointed out you can collect the ammonia, so my conclusion is that NH₄NO₃ is useful on its own and as an intermediary reactant.

more pyrotechnical information