COMMON NAME – PETN
NAME – Pentaerythritol tetranitrate
CHEMICAL NAME – 2,2-Bis[(nitrooxy)-methyl]-1,3-propanediol dinitrate
FOREIGN NAMES – Penthrite (Belgium, France), Nitropenta (Germany, Spain) Pentrit (Germany, Switzerland), Pentrite (Italy), Shoeiyaku (Japan) TEN [Tetraeritrit nitrat] (Soviet Union), Pentrita (Spain), Pentyl (Sweden)
TYPE – High explosive
DATE OF DISCOVERY – 1894
DATE FIRST USED AS AN EXPLOSIVE – 1912
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN – Germany
MOLECULAR FORMULA – C5H8N4O12
MOLECULAR WEIGHT – 316
DENSITY – 1.71 g per ml
NORMAL STATE – Crystalline powder
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE/COLOR – White crystalline powder when pure, Light gray with wax or impurities
INITIATION – Minimum 0.03 g Lead azide, 0.17 g Merury fulminate
SENSITIVITY – Desensitized when mixed with wax, otherwise very sensitive to heat, friction, and impact. 100% chance of detonation when struck with a 7.62mm (30 Cal.) rifle bullet.
STABILITY – Stable under normal conditions
DETONATION VELOCITY – 8,350 m/s (27,395 fps)
RE FACTOR (BRISANCE) [TNT=1.0] – 1.66
BURNING RATE – UNCONFINED/UNCONFINED –
TOXICITY – Nose, Eye, Throat, and Lung Irritant. Skin contact toxic
MELTING POINT – 140o C.(284o F.)
BOILING POINT – 180o C.(356o F.) [Decomposes above 150o C.(302o F.)]
SOLUBILITY – Soluble in acetone, insoluble in water
APPLICATIONS – PRINCIPLE USES – Explosive core of Primacord. Component of various explosive mixtures including plastic explosives, used in blasting caps, detonators, and boosters,
PETN, the common designator for the explosive Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is one of the most powerful military explosives found in wide use. The blast of PETN is extremely violent and its shattering effect (Brisance) is more than 50% greater than that of TNT. First produced in the 1890s, PETN was not used as a practical explosive until German volume production commenced in 1912. It was the Germans who made the greatest use of PETN, referred to by them as Nitropenta, mixing it with TNT in various percentages for specific explosive characteristics. The PETN/TNT explosive mixtures were used for everything from bursting charges for shells to demolition charges. In the United States, PETN is mixed with TNT to produce 50/50 Pentolite. It is also used in a pure form as the explosive core of the flexible Primercord, also called Detcord or Detonating cord. Given PETNs detonation velocity of 8350 meters per second (27,395 feet per second), Primacord can be used to connect any number of explosive charges together with the resulting detonations being effectively simultaneous. If one end of an 8.5 kilometer long (5.28 statute miles) length of Primercord was detonated, the other end would explode less than one second later. One of the uses for PETN today is in the formulations for Semtex. It is usually mixed with RDX and a plasticizing agent to make up the Czech plastic explosives. In the United States, PETN is also combined with a rubber-like compound to make a waterproof, flexible, sheet explosive.
