methyl nitrate

As well as being an explosive, methyl nitrate is toxic and causes headaches when inhaled.

Methyl nitrate is a sensitive explosive.

Explosive Is Found Customs officials discovered three wine bottles filled with methyl nitrate, a liquid explosive, in the man's luggage.

Mr. Hamadei was arrested at Frankfurt airport when three bottles of methyl nitrate, a liquid explosive, were found in his luggage.

His older brother, Abbas, was detained on Jan. 26 and led the authorities to a bigger cache of methyl nitrate on the French frontier.

He was arrested in January 1987 at the Frankfurt airport while possessing seven bottles of the explosive methyl nitrate concealed in wine bottles.

Mohammed Hamadei, 22 years old, was arrested in Frankfurt Airport on Jan. 13 carrying three bottles containing the explosive methyl nitrate.

Methyl nitrate is the methyl ester of nitric acid and has the chemical formula CHNO.

The court said that Abbas and Mohammed Hamadei arrived in Frankfurt on Jan. 13, 1987, carrying seven bottles of the explosive methyl nitrate.

The police discovered eight plastic containers with about five gallons of methyl nitrate in high grass along a road outside the town of Beckingen in the Saarland, the authorities said.

Muhammad Hammadah eventually would be arrested on January 13, 1987, at Frankfurt Airport trying to smuggle through customs a bottle of methyl nitrate, a highly explosive, unstable liquid.

Despite the superior explosive properties of methyl nitrate, it has not received application as an explosive due mostly to its high volatility, which prevents it from being stored or handled safely.

The sensitivity of methyl nitrate to initiation by detonation is among the greatest known, with even a number one blasting cap, the lowest power available, producing a near full detonation of the explosive.

The case could become even more protracted if the Frankfurt prosecutor's office decided to seek an indictment on charges of trying to smuggle nine quarts of methyl nitrate, a liquid explosive, into West Germany and using a false passport.

Mr. Hamadei, 22 years old, was arrested when customs agents at the Frankfurt airport searched his carry-on luggage and found three wine bottles containing methyl nitrate, a fluid sometimes used to make explosives, according to West German authorities.

Methyl nitrate can be produced on a laboratory or industrial scale either through the distillation of a mixture of methanol and nitric acid, or by the nitration of methanol by a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids.

Nitrate esters are typically prepared by condensation of nitric acid and the alcohol: For example, the simplest nitrate ester, methyl nitrate, is formed by reaction of methanol and nitric acid in the presence of sulfuric acid: