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Concept
Acetone peroxide
Summary
Acetone peroxide (æsə'təʊn_pɛrˈɒksaɪd also called APEX and mother of Satan) is an organic peroxide and a primary explosive. It is produced by the reaction of acetone and hydrogen peroxide to yield a mixture of linear monomer and cyclic dimer, trimer, and tetramer forms. The dimer is known as diacetone diperoxide (DADP). The trimer is known as triacetone triperoxide (TATP) or tri-cyclic acetone peroxide (TCAP). Acetone peroxide takes the form of a white crystalline powder with a distinctive bleach-like odor (when impure) or a fruit-like smell when pure, and can explode powerfully if subjected to heat, friction, static electricity, concentrated sulfuric acid, strong UV radiation or shock. Until about 2015, explosives detectors were not set to detect non-nitrogenous explosives, as most explosives used preceding 2015 were nitrogen-based. TATP, being nitrogen-free, has been used as the explosive of choice in several terrorist bomb attacks since 2001.
Acetone peroxide (specifically, triacetone triperoxide) was discovered in 1895 by the German chemist Richard Wolffenstein. Wolffenstein combined acetone and hydrogen peroxide, and then he allowed the mixture to stand for a week at room temperature, during which time a small quantity of crystals precipitated, which had a melting point of .
In 1899 Adolf von Baeyer and Victor Villiger described the first synthesis of the dimer and described use of acids for the synthesis of both peroxides.
Baeyer and Villiger prepared the dimer by combining potassium persulfate in diethyl ether with acetone, under cooling. After separating the ether layer, the product was purified and found to melt at . They found that the trimer could be prepared by adding hydrochloric acid to a chilled mixture of acetone and hydrogen peroxide. By using the depression of freezing points to determine the molecular weights of the compounds, they also determined that the form of acetone peroxide that they had prepared via potassium persulfate was a dimer, whereas the acetone peroxide that had been prepared via hydrochloric acid was a trimer, like Wolffenstein's compound.
Official source
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