• Question: can you make explosives with chemistry

    Asked by chewyoda007 to Josh on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Josh Makepeace

      Josh Makepeace answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Hi chewyoda007! Thanks for the question. Yes, you definitely can make explosives with chemistry. I think most of the explosives that get used day to day (like in mining, demolishing buildings etc) are made with chemistry.

      TNT, or trinitrotoluene, is probably the most famous chemical explosive. A good hint for a chemical that’s likely to be explosive is if it has nitro in the name. Nitro groups (NO2) contain lots of energy just waiting to be released!

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