Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Could usable TNT be manufactured in the American Civil War?

+0
−0

Around the American Civil War period, TNT and nitroglycerin were discovered. This made me wonder... what if a more effective recipe for TNT was developed, and efforts were made to manufacture it?

This question has two parts to it.

  1. What are the likelihoods of discovering the recipe for usably pure TNT with this tech level? TNT was discovered at this point, but from what I was taught the purity was so low that it could not be made into an effective explosive compound.

  2. How dangerous would it be to manufacture and handle TNT, in this period? Would they commonly risk a disaster equivalent to Tianjin harbor in 2015 with their factories (yes, it's ammonium nitrate, not TNT, but the manufacture would involve nitric acid and toulene)? Or would it be possible to manufacture the chemical with relative safety?

History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/101192. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »