What are the best explosives that can be made with materials found at home?
Well the obvious ones would be Thermite (incendiary)Ammonium nitrate tri-iodide (high explosive)Mercury fulminate (high explosive)Silver fulminate (high explosive)Nitrotoludine (explosive)Acetone peroxide (high explosive)Black powder (propellant)Nitroglycerin (explosive)Dynamite (explosive)I won't describe how these are made, I trust that you can find the methods yourself. Nitric acid is needed for a few of these, but if you can find a way to make that yourself everything is pretty easy. It's not hard to make it at home though. Ammonium nitrate tri-iodide requires anhydrous ammonia to make, but that can easily be made at home too. Silver fulminate may be the most dangerous one on the list, I would advise against making that. The high explosives detonate from shock. The explosives generally need to be detonated by a high explosive. The incendiary will ignite a fire that can't be put out with normal methods but it won't ignite easily. The propellant is gunpowder.
Can baby powder be used to kill ants?
The below paragraph is an exerpt from the website listed below: "All you need to do is figure out where the little buggers are coming in at, and sprinkle a baby powder firewall. Ants that are already in your house will lose their scent trail, get lost, and eventually die; ants that are trying to come into your house won't be able to crest the mountain of white." Obviously ants cant stand the scent of baby powder, so I would guess that putting baby powder on an entire bed won't actually kill the ants...just relocate them! There are other helpful tips at the site below for suggestions on how to kill ants!
I need to find magnesium (solid or powder) around the house. Help?
well i dont think you would have this around your house but veryyyyyy easy to obtain. go to walmart and look in camping section. you will se a flint and magnesium bar. do not get only a flint bar make sure you see a silver rectangle with a black cylinder on top. you dont have to be over 18 to buy so very easy to get. remeber the finer the magnesium the better so if you want strong flash dont use a file use say 320 grit sandpaper. just hpt glue the magnesium to liek a block of wood and press down hard while rubbing back and forth on sandpaper. oh and you dont need potassium nitrate you can get other stuff. magnesium works with most any oxidizer. it depends on the strenth of the powder you want. if you want weak powder you can use pool chlorine or medium powder you can buy a road flare and extract the strontium nitrate in an easy process shown on youtube by wedfed908 for strong powder you could use potassium perchlorate but you would have to get it online. potassium perchlorate make extremely strong flash powder so if possible get that. you cant really find potassium nitrate anywhere exept online. OH AND THE EASIEST OXIDIZER TO GET IT ESTES BRAND ROCKET ENGINES FOUND IN THE TOY SECTION OF WALMART. JUST BUY AT SELF CHECKOUT. CHECK THIS VID TO LEARN TO MAKE IT.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aix6ue3tr8 REMEBER USE SANDPAPER INSTEAD OF A FILE LIEK ME. THIS IS MEDIUM STRENGTH FLASH. THIS ONE SHOWS HOW TO MAKE WITH POOL CHLORINE:LOW STRENTH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5RlXYytUW4 SORRY THIS IS SO LONG
How do I make instant tea powder at home?
Instant tea powder could be made of fresh leaves (fresh herbs), dried tea leaves (green or black teas), or of combination of dried tea leaves, with sugar. Here is one way to prepare an instant tea powder at home, taken from Care2 (Make Your Own Dry Tea Powders), the world’s largest social network for good.1. Use chopped fresh herbs, cut and sifted dry leafy herbs, or freshly ground powdered roots.2. Simmer herbs and water for two to four hours on very low heat. Use one part fresh herb to two parts water, or one part dry herb to five parts water.3. Take half of the plant matter out at this time and press. Return any liquid to the pot and compost the marc.4. Simmer the remains down to half the volume if you started with fresh herbs, or 20 percent of the original volume if you started with dry herbs.5. Blend the remaining plant material and liquid to a creamy consistency. If this seems too thin, simmer longer.6. Brush a thin coat of organic olive oil inside a glass baking pan. Spread the thick herbal paste on the pan, approximately 1/8 inch thick.7. Put in a gas oven to dry for 18 to 38 hours, using only the gentle warmth generated by the pilot light. A food dehydrator set at 100ºF to 120ºF works equally well.8. Remove from the pan and grind the hardened extract in a coffee grinder that you’ve cleaned scrupulously, or one that’s dedicated to grinding herbs,This powder should keep in a glass airtight container for at least a year.
If somebody didn’t know what gunpowder (black powder) consisted of, how could they find out? How easily could you identify the components under a microscope?
To add to what the others have said, if one does not know the recipe for black powder it would be easiest to simply look up the recipe. I see that you do have internet access, so that is a possibility.However, although it is not usually possible to identify the chemical composition of materials under a normal light microscope, there is at least one kind of microscope that does this kind of thing. A microscope using a Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy apparatus like the Cary 620 can allow one to perform FT-IR on a microscopic level. So, in many cases on can determine the chemical composition of different materials on a microscopic level. I won’t bore you with which analytes work well and which do not.However, one cannot actually see the atoms with this kind of microscope, or any other type of light microscope for that matter. So, if you’re thinking you’re going to pull the microscope out of your chemistry set and see the sulfur atoms in the black powder, that isn’t going to happen. An electron microscope might get you close to that, but there are a lot easier ways of analyzing the chemical composition of a substance than using a microscope. Mass Spectrometery, FT-IR and Raman Spectroscopy are some good examples of better techniques to investigate the chemical composition of a material. Google those terms if you are interested in that type of thing.
What can I make with household items that is equivalent to gunpowder?
Aluminum powder (aluminum foil powdered in a coffee grinder) mixed with pool cleaner (calcium hypochlorite) in a 1:2 ratio by weight will produce a flash powder that can do a lot of what plain blackpowder will do. The dryer, evenly mixed, and finely ground the resulting powder is, the more bang you will achieve. Be aware thought that without some sort of container both gunpowder and flash powder will typically just burn quickly and produce a lot of smoke without any bang.