Nitroglycerin

Definition: Nitroglycerin

Nitroglycerin

Noun

1. A heavy yellow poisonous oily explosive liquid obtained by nitrating glycerol; used in making explosives and medically as a vasodilator (trade names Nitrospan and Nitrostat).

Date "nitroglycerin" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1880. (references)

Note: Nitroglycerin \Ni`tro*glyc"er*in\, noun. [Nitro- glycerinn.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definitions: Nitroglycerin

Domain	Definitions
Health	A highly volatile organic nitrate that acts as a dilator of arterial and venous smooth muscle and is used in the treatment of angina. It provides relief through improvement of the balance between myocardial oxygen supply and demand. Although total coronary blood flow is not increased, there is redistribution of blood flow in the heart when partial occlusion of coronary circulation is effected. (references)
Mining	CH2 NO3 CHNO3 CH2 NO3 ; pale yellow; flammable; explosive; thick liquid; soluble in alcohol; soluble in ether in all proportions; slightly soluble in water; melting point, 13.1 degrees C; and explosion point, 256 degrees C. Used as an explosive, in the production of dynamite and other explosives, as an explosive plasticizer in solid rocket propellants, and as a possible liquid rocket propellant. Molecular weight, 227.09; triclinic or orthorhombic when solid; sp gr, 1.5918 (at 25 degrees C, referred to water at 4 degrees C); soluble in methanol and in carbon disulfide; very soluble in chloroform; and slightly soluble in petroleum ether. This highly explosive liquid is made by mixing sulfuric acid and nitric acid in a steel tank and then adding glycerin. Its great shattering effect has made it esp. suitable for shooting oil wells. Because of its sensitiveness to shock, liquid nitroglygerin is dangerous to transport and unsuitable for use in mining and quarrying operations. Syn:glycerol trinitrate; trinitrate glycerol; trinitrin;explosive oil. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Nitroglycerin

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Nitroglycerin (also nitroglycerine, trinitroglycerin, or glyceryl trinitrate) is a chemical compound, a heavy yellow poisonous oily explosive liquid obtained by nitrating glycerol. It is used in making explosives, specifically dynamite, and as such is used in construction and demolition. It is also used medically as a vasodilator to treat heart conditions.

Instability and desensitization

In its pure form, it is shock-sensitive (i.e., physical shock can cause it to explode) and degrades over time to even more unstable forms. This makes it highly dangerous to transport or use in its pure form.

Early in the history of this explosive it was discovered that liquid nitroglycerin can be "desensitized" by cooling to 40–50 °F, at which temperature it freezes, contracting upon solidification. However, later thawing can be extremely sensitizing, especially if impurities are present or if warming is too rapid. It is possible to chemically "desensitize" nitroglycerin to a point where it can be considered approximately as "safe" as modern High Explosive formulations, by the addition of approximately 10%–30% ethanol, acetone, or dinitrotoluene (percentage varys with the desensitizing agent used). Desensitization requires extra effort to reconstitute the "pure" product. Failing this, it must be assumed that desensitized nitroglycerine is substantially more difficult to detonate, possibly rendering it useless as an explosive for practical application.

What is detonation?

Nitroglycerin and any or all of the diluents mentioned above can certainly "deflagrate", or burn. However, the explosive power of nitroglycerin is derived not from burning, but from detonation, in which a shock propagates through a fuel-rich medium at greater than the speed of sound in that medium. In other words, the initial burn sets up a pressure gradient that pre-ignites unshocked material, creating a fast-moving transition zone, which (due to the nature of the material) can detonate any appropriate material it encounters, expanding in a never-ending cascade of hyper-instantaneous pressure-induced combustion building exponentially upon itself, quite unlike "deflagration", which generally relies solely upon available fuels independent of pressure and shock.

An explosion is essentially very fast combustion, and combustion requires fuel and oxidant. Nitroglycerin, as can be seen from its composition and structure (below), essentially contains both these components. If it is detonated under pressure, it explodes to form thousands of times its original volume in hot gas.

Properties

formula: CH₂(ONO₂)-CH(ONO₂)-CH₂(ONO₂)
colour: yellow but coulourless when pure
aspect: slightly oily liquid
density: 1.13 at 15 °C
melting point: 13.2 °C
molecular weight 227.0872
very sensitive to friction, shock, elevation of temperature, and sparks.

Preparation

Nitroglycerin is prepared by nitration of glycerin. In the process, glycerin is slowly tipped into a mix of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. The solution is slowly mixed. The temperature should never exceed 30 °C, otherwise there is a risk of explosion.

When the reaction is over, the mix is poured into a large amount of water. The nitroglycerin settles and is washed with water and sodium carbonate until it becomes neutral.

Manufacture

RISK DISCLAIMER : The making of nitroglycerin is obviously potentially very dangerous, because of the product's explosive nature. Do not attempt to make it yourself!

The industrial manufacturing process uses a 50:50 mixture of fuming sulphuric acid (fuming means it is very concentrated) and red fuming nitric acid. This produces nitronium ions in situ, which attack glycerin (also called glycerol) at its negatively charged oxygen atoms. The functional group NO₂ is thus added, adding extra oxygen atoms to the flammable substance glycerin.

The use of strong acids almost always results in an exothermic reaction (i.e., heat is produced), and this reaction is no exception. However, if the mixture becomes too hot, it explodes. Thus, the acid mixture is added slowly to the reaction vessel containing the glycerin. The reaction vessel itself is cooled with ice-cold water or some other coolant mixture at about 0 °C. The vessel itself has an emergency trap door at its bottom, which hangs over a large pool of very cold water. If sensors in the mixture detect the temperature rising too rapidly, then the whole mixture can be dumped into the ice-cold water, which prevents an explosion if done in time.

Medical use

In medicine, nitroglycerin is used as a heart medication (under the trade names Nitrospan and Nitrostat). It is used as a medicine for angina pectoris (ischaemic heart disease) in tablets, ointment, or solution for intravenous use.

The principal action of nitroglycerin is vasodilation, that is, widening of the blood vessels. The main effects of nitroglycerin in episodes of angina pectoris are

chest pain subsides
blood pressure decreases
heart rate increases

These effects come about because nitroglycerin is converted to nitric oxide in the body (by a mechanism that is not completely understood), and nitric oxide in turn is a well-known natural vasodilator.

Terrorism

The Manila-based Al-Qaida plot known as Project Bojinka called for the bombing of 11 airliners over the Pacific Ocean on January 21 and 22, 1995. Al Qaida agents were planned to plant liquid bombs, called "Mark II" "microbombs" on the aircraft. The device was inside Casio digital watches that contain nitroglycerin for the explosive and cotton balls for stabilizing. Two 9 Volt batteries taken from children's toys were used to power light bulb filaments and to detonate the nitroglycerin. Trace amounts of sulphuric acid, nitrobenzene, silver azide, liquid acetone, and nitrate were present. The wiring was attached to the arm of the watch using a tiny space below the calculator. The alteration was so small that one could still wear the bomb as a watch.

This bomb was tested several times, first by mastermind Ramzi Yousef inside of a mall in Cebu City, then by cohort Wali Khan Amin Shah inside the Greenbelt Theatre in Manila on December 1, 1994.

The bomb also was tested on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 on December 11, 1994. He boarded the plane under an assumed name while hiding the batteries in the soles of his shoes. He assembled the bomb in the lavatory on the flight's Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Cebu leg. He stuck it under his seat and left the plane in Mactan-Cebu International Airport. The bomb exploded on the Cebu to New Tokyo International Airport (Narita, Japan), leg, killing a Japanese businessman and injuring 10. The plane made an emergency landing at Naha, Okinawa.

Project Bojinka was foiled on the night of January 5 and the morning of January 6, 1995, when Manila police found the plans and the bomb factory in Yousef's Manila apartment after a chemical fire occurred there.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Nitroglycerin."

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Synonyms: Nitroglycerin

Synonyms: glyceryl trinitrate (n), nitroglycerine (n), trinitroglycerin (n). (additional references)

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Crosswords: Nitroglycerin

English words defined with "nitroglycerin": Blasting gelatin ♦ Dualin, dynamite ♦ Fulminating oil ♦ gelignite, gelly, Giant powder, Glonoine ♦ Hercules powder ♦ Jelly powder ♦ Lignose, Lithofracteur ♦ Niteosaccharin, Nitrogelatin, Nitroleum, Nitrospan, Nitrostat ♦ Vigorite. (references)

Specialty definitions using "nitroglycerin": ACID SUPERVISOR ♦ ballistite, blasting tube, blender operator ♦ cartridge strength ♦ ditching dynamite, donarite, DOPE-DRY-HOUSE OPERATOR, dope-house operator helper, double-base propellant, dry-house operator, DYNAMITE-PACKING-MACHINE FEEDER ♦ gelatin extras, gelatins ♦ Isosorbide Dinitrate ♦ low powders, low-freezing dynamites ♦ MIXER OPERATOR I, mixing-house operator ♦ nitro, nitrocotto, NITROGLYCERIN DISTRIBUTOR, nitroglycerin explosive, NITROGLYCERIN NEUTRALIZER, nitroglycerin powder, NITROGLYCERIN SUPERVISOR, NITROGLYCERIN-SEPARATOR OPERATOR, nitrolite, nonfreezing explosive ♦ Polar Ajax, polar explosive, Polar Viking, powder shoveler, POWDER-LINE REPAIRER, prophylene-glycol dinitrate explosive ♦ simple explosives, straight dynamites ♦ terroite, TOXIC OPERATOR ♦ Unifrax ♦ vulcan powder. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Nitroglycerin" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Czech (nitroglycerin), Swedish (nitroglycerine, soup).

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Modern Usage: Nitroglycerin

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant (Christmas Vacation; writing credit: John Hughes)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Nitroglycerin

Domain	Title
Books	Nitroglycerin 6 (reference) Nitroglycerin 7 : progress in therapy (reference) Nitroglycerin V (reference) Nitroglycerin V: Funftes Hamburger Symposium 2. November 1985 (reference) Transdermal Nitroglycerin Therapy (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Nitroglycerin

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Nitroglycerin is taken when discomfort occurs or is expected. (references)
		The most commonly prescribed drug for angina is nitroglycerin, which relieves pain by widening blood vessels. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Nitroglycerin

"Nitroglycerin" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Nitroglycerin" is used about 2 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	2	245,945

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Nitroglycerin

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
nitroglycerin	167
nitroglycerin patch	12
nitroglycerin tablet	7
nitroglycerin ointment	7
make nitroglycerin	6
nitroglycerin side effects	5
explosive nitroglycerin	5
nitroglycerin sublingual	3
fissure nitroglycerin	3
nitroglycerin pill	3
heart nitroglycerin	3
dynamite nitroglycerin	3
nitroglycerin transdermal	3
nitroglycerin structure	2
container nitroglycerin	2
nitroglycerin use	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Nitroglycerin

Language		Translations for "nitroglycerin"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Bulgarian		нитроглицерин (soup). (various references)

Chinese		硝化�"�油. (various references)

Czech		nitroglycerin. (various references)

Danish		nitroglycerol (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), nitroglycerin (explosive oil, nitroglycerine, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), trinitroglycerol (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), sprængolie (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), glycerylnitrat. (various references)

Dutch		nitroglycerol (explosive oil, glycerol trinitrate, glyceryl trinitrate, nitroglycerin(e), nitroglycerol, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), nitroglycerine (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol), glyceroltrinitraat (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol). (various references)

Farsi		ترکیب روغنی سنگین . (various references)

Finnish		nitroglyseroli, nitroglyseriini, glyseryylitrinitraatti, glyseryylinitraatti. (various references)

French		nitroglycérol (nitroglycerol), nitroglycérine (nitroglycerin(e), nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol), trinitroglycérine (nitroglycerin(e), nitroglycerol), huile explosive. (various references)

German		Nitroglyzerin (nitroglycerine). (various references)

Greek		νιτρογλυκερόλη (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), νιτρογλυκερίνη (explosive oil, glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), εκρηκτικό έλαιο (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), τρινιτρική γλυκερίνη (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol). (various references)

Hungarian		nitroglicerin (blasting oil, nitroglycerine, nitro-glycerine). (various references)

Indonesian		nitrogliserin. (various references)

Italian		nitroglicole (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), nitroglicerina (explosive oil, glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), trinitroglicerina (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol), olio esplosivo (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		ニトログリコール中�' (nitrocellulose, nitroglycol poisoning). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ニトログリセリン . (various references)

Pig Latin		itroglycerinnay

Portuguese		nitroglicerol (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), nitroglicerina (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol, nitrous), trinitroglicerina (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), óleo explosivo (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin). (various references)

Russian		нитроглицерин (nitroglycerine). (various references)

Spanish		nitroglicerol (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), nitroglicerina (explosive oil, glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerine, nitroglycerol, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), trinitroglicerina (glycerol trinitrate, nitroglycerol), trinitrina (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), trinitrato de glicerina (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin), aceite explosivo (explosive oil, trinitrate glycerol, trinitrin). (various references)

Turkish		nitrogliserin (nitroglycerine, soup). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations: Nitroglycerin

Derivations
	Words beginning with "nitroglycerin": nitroglycerine, nitroglycerines, nitroglycerins. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Nitroglycerin"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "nitroglycerin" (pronounced nī'trōgli"serun, nī'trugli"serun , or nī'khrugli"serun)
12	n ī' t r ō g l i" s er u n	nitroglycerine.
3	-er u n	cephalosporin, intrauterine, mandarin, margarine, saccharin, tamarin, uterine, veteran.
7	-g l i" s er u n	nitroglycerine.
3	-er u n	cephalosporin, intrauterine, mandarin, margarine, saccharin, tamarin, uterine, veteran.
7	-g l i" s er u n	nitroglycerine.
3	-er u n	cephalosporin, intrauterine, mandarin, margarine, saccharin, tamarin, uterine, veteran.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Nitroglycerin

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "c-e-g-i-i-l-n-n-o-r-r-t-y"
	-2 letters: cointerring.
	-3 letters: enticingly, interiorly, retiringly.
	-4 letters: cornering, crinoline, criterion, entoiling, interring, loitering, orienting, reclining, recoiling, recoining, reliction.
	-5 letters: centring, clingier, cogently, cryolite, elicitor, eloining, encoring, enticing, erringly, gerontic, glycerin, ignitron, incliner, interior, lenition, ligroine, nicotine, nitrogen, nitrolic, noticing, reciting, religion, relining, reoiling, retiling, retiring, retrying, tinglier, tricorne.
	Words containing the letters "c-e-g-i-i-l-n-n-o-r-r-t-y"
	+1 letter: nitroglycerine, nitroglycerins.
	+2 letters: nitroglycerines.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.