Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events

Chemical Expert Testifies in Jordan Trial

Here.

Speaking as someone with a little background in the use of chemicals to make rockets go up into the sky, I have some problems with some of the concepts mentioned.

One example:

Azam, a chemical expert at Jordan's General Intelligence Department, testified that a large quantity of plastic containers seized from the defendants contained hydrogen peroxide. He said the accused planned to add "ground black cumin" to the concentrated solution, which would have made "an explosive substance stronger than TNT."


Ground black cumin is a spice (!) I don't know about one-to-one comparisons to TNT, but adding a finely-ground organic substance of any kind to concentrated hydrogen peroxide is an operation you would want to watch on television. Preferably from a different time zone. I have no idea who was going to pick the short straw to dump the spice shaker into the cannister.

For the record, the product (the result of rapid decomposition, not combustion as such) would be water vapor and oxygen. Hardly WMD materials.

Al-Azam said the defendants also had oxygen, sulfuric acid and nitroglycerin.


Okay, sulfuric acid, maybe. A cloud could be dispersed by an explosion, and it wouldn't be good for anyone who breathed it, but it would rapidly settle out. Nitroglycerin is just an explosive.

I'm not seeing what I consider WMD in the classic sense, here. "Volatility" isn't a major criteria of these things. Am I missing something?

Other input on this?

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