The Beirut Explosion: On August 4, 2020, an explosion rocked the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, sending a mushroom cloud high into the air and a sonic blast outward through the city. At least 200 people were killed and around 5000 were injured. The explosion created a 460-foot-wide crater and a shockwave that blew out windows as far as 5 miles from the port. It was heard as far away as Cyprus, 125 miles across the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. seismologists at the United States Geological Survey registered it as the equivalent of a 3.3–magnitude earthquake. The source was found to be a stockpile of 2750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that was being stored in a warehouse on the port. A fire had broken out nearby shortly before the explosion. What is actually happening in one of these explosions? Pure ammonium nitrate undergoes a decomposition reaction into gaseous dinitrogen monoxide and water vapor that occurs at or above temperatures of 443 K.2 (ΔH = –36 kJ) 1. Write and balance the chemical equation for this decomposition. 2. Convert 443 K to degrees Fahrenheit. The ammonium nitrate involved in the explosion in Beirut had been sitting in a warehouse on the port since 2014. Customs chief Badri Daher said that the harbor master of the port was responsible for letting the shipment into Lebanon and questioned why he allowed it. Daher also said that between himself and his predecessor, 5 complaints had been sent to Lebanese judges asking about the storage of such chemicals, but that the judges never responded. 3. On the day of the explosion, do you think the warehouse was that hot? Did the ammonium nitrate decompose on its own?
Ideal and Real Gases
Ideal gases obey conditions of the general gas laws under all states of pressure and temperature. Ideal gases are also named perfect gases. The attributes of ideal gases are as follows,
Gas Laws
Gas laws describe the ways in which volume, temperature, pressure, and other conditions correlate when matter is in a gaseous state. The very first observations about the physical properties of gases was made by Robert Boyle in 1662. Later discoveries were made by Charles, Gay-Lussac, Avogadro, and others. Eventually, these observations were combined to produce the ideal gas law.
Gaseous State
It is well known that matter exists in different forms in our surroundings. There are five known states of matter, such as solids, gases, liquids, plasma and Bose-Einstein condensate. The last two are known newly in the recent days. Thus, the detailed forms of matter studied are solids, gases and liquids. The best example of a substance that is present in different states is water. It is solid ice, gaseous vapor or steam and liquid water depending on the temperature and pressure conditions. This is due to the difference in the intermolecular forces and distances. The occurrence of three different phases is due to the difference in the two major forces, the force which tends to tightly hold molecules i.e., forces of attraction and the disruptive forces obtained from the thermal energy of molecules.
The Beirut Explosion:
On August 4, 2020, an explosion rocked the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, sending a mushroom cloud high into the air and a sonic blast outward through the city. At least 200 people were killed and around 5000
were injured. The explosion created a 460-foot-wide crater and a shockwave that blew out windows as far as 5 miles from the port. It was heard as far away as Cyprus, 125 miles across the Mediterranean Sea.
U.S. seismologists at the United States Geological Survey registered it as the equivalent of a 3.3–magnitude earthquake. The source was found to be a stockpile of 2750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that was being stored in a warehouse on the port. A fire had broken out nearby shortly before the explosion.
What is actually happening in one of these explosions?
Pure ammonium nitrate undergoes a decomposition reaction into gaseous dinitrogen monoxide and
water vapor that occurs at or above temperatures of 443 K.2 (ΔH = –36 kJ)
1. Write and balance the chemical equation for this decomposition.
2. Convert 443 K to degrees Fahrenheit.
The ammonium nitrate involved in the explosion in Beirut had been sitting in a warehouse on the port since 2014. Customs chief Badri Daher said that the harbor master of the port was responsible for letting the shipment into Lebanon and questioned why he allowed it. Daher also said that between himself and his predecessor, 5 complaints had been sent to Lebanese judges asking about the storage of such chemicals, but that the judges never responded.
3. On the day of the explosion, do you think the warehouse was that hot? Did the ammonium nitrate decompose on its own?
4. What happens when fuel is added (like a carbon source)? Find the heat of the reaction for the following reaction.
Compound ∆??° (kJ mol^−)
N2O 81.6
CO2 -393.5
2 N2O(??) + C(??) → 2 N2(??) + CO2(??)
5. Now, consider the reaction of ammonium nitrate with fuel to burn. Using Hess’ Law, the chemical equation you found in Question 1, and the reaction given in Question 4, what is the heat of this reaction?
2NH4NO3(??) + C(??) → 2N2(??) + 4H2O(??) + CO2(??)
6. Which reaction releases more energy?
A. The reaction from Question 1 (no fuel)
B. The reaction from Question 5 (with fuel)
7. Is the release of energy endothermic or exothermic?
A. Endothermic
B. Exothermic
How does this reaction cause so much devastation?
For context, we’re going to do a thought experiment. Imagine a 1 cm3 block of ammonium nitrate.
Ammonium nitrate has a density of 1.73 g/cm3.
8. How many moles of gas are formed when 1 cm3 of ammonium nitrate is reacted completely according to the chemical equation in question 5?
9. An average August day in Beirut is 92 °F. You will learn a lot more about gases and what affects their volume in Chapter 9, but for now, assume that 1 mol of any gas at 92 °F takes up 25.1 L of
space. How many liters of gas would be produced?
10. How much heat is released?
Now, in the actual Beirut explosion, 2750. metric tons of ammonium nitrate reacted in the presence of fuel. (1 metric ton = 1 Mg)
11. How many liters of gas were produced?
12. How much heat was released?
For comparison, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki released between 54 and 96 billion kJ of energy of each, while the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, released around 210 trillion kJ of energy.
On the smaller side, consider a bullet being fired.
13. 0.557 grams of a particular gunpowder will propel a 40-caliber bullet with 526 ft lbs of energy when fired. How many kJ of energy does the firing of the bullet release? (737.56 ft lbs = 1 kJ)
14. How many grams of ammonium nitrate would you have to react (using the reaction with fuel) to release the same amount of energy as one bullet being fired?
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