Oxyliquit

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An oxyliquit is an explosive material made of a mixture of liquid oxygen (LOX) with a suitable fuel, usually carbon (as lampblack) or some organic chemical (eg. a mixture of soot and naphthalene), wood meal, or aluminium powder or sponge; the material is capable of absorbing several times its weight of LOX. It is a class of Sprengel explosives.

The explosive properties of these mixtures were discovered in Germany in 1895 by Prof. F. C. Linde, who gave them their name.

Oxyliquits have numerous advantages. They are cheap to make, can be initiated by a safety fuse, and in case of a misfire the oxygen evaporates quickly, rendering the charge quite safe in a short period of time. The first large scale deployment was in 1899 during building of the Simplon Tunnel, in the form of cartridges filled with diatomaceous earth soaked with petroleum, or an absorbent cork charcoal, dipped in liquid oxygen immediately before use, or in another modification the cartridge is filled with liquid oxygen after placement in the borehole.

As a disadvantage, oxyliquits, once mixed, are sensitive to sparks, shock and friction, and there were reported cases of spontaneous ignition. The power relative to weight is high, but the density is low, so the brisance is low as well. Ignition by a fuse alone is sometimes unreliable. The charge should be detonated within 5 minutes of soaking, but even after 15 minutes it may be capable of exploding, even though weaker and with production of carbon monoxide.

During the World War I, oxyliquits were in wide use in Germany due to shortages of availability of nitrates, and continued even after the war. In 1930, over 3 million pounds of liquid oxygen were used for this purpose in Germany alone, and additional 201,466 lb were consumed by British quarries. The accident rate was lower than with conventional explosives. However, the Dewar flasks the LOX was stored in were occasionally exploding, which was caused by iron impurities in the activated carbon serving as trace gas absorbent in the insulation vacuum layer in the flask, which caused spontaneous ignition in case of LOX leak into the enclosed space.

Use of oxyliquits during World War II was low, as there was a plentiful supply of nitrates obtained from synthetic ammonia.

At first, liquid air, self-enriched by standing (nitrogen has lower boiling point and evaporates preferentially) was used, but pure liquid oxygen gives better results.

A mixture of lampblack and liquid oxygen was measured to have detonation velocity of 3000 m/s, and 4 to 12% more strength than dynamite. However, the flame it produces has too long duration to be safe in possible presence of explosive gases, so oxyliquits found their use mostly in open quarries and strip mining.

Due to the complicated machinery required for manufacture of liquid oxygen, oxyliquit explosives were used mostly only where their consumption was high. In the United States, some such locations were the strip mines in coal mining areas of the Midwest. Its consumption peaked in 1953 with 10,190 tons, but then decreased until zero in 1968, when it was totally replaced with even cheaper ANFO.

An oxyliquit explosive can be accidentally made by spilling liquid oxygen on tarmac during filling high-altitude airplane systems. The pavement then can become sufficiently explosive to be initiated by walking on it; the oxygen evaporates soon, though.

Oxyliquit explosive was prepared ad-hoc from sugar and an oxygen bottle to blast a hole in a collapsed cave in Stanisław Lem's 1951 novel Astronauts.

See also detailed related excerpts from old literature here: Google Groups, alt.engr.explosives, and an article here: [1]