Carbonite was one of the earliest and most successful coal-mining
explosives. It is made from such
ingredients as
nitroglycerin,
wood meal, and some
nitrate as that of
sodium
Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable ...
; also
nitrobenzene,
sulfur, and
diatomaceous earth. Carbonite was invented by Bichel of Schmidt and Bichel.
The term Carbonite can refer to these things:
* least commonly, an early explosive from Schmidt and Bichel made of sulphuretted
tar oil,
nitrocumene, and sodium nitrate,
[The Manufacture of Explosives, Oscar Guttman, p. 231]
*
dynamite made to the specific Carbonite recipe and sold by
Schmidt and Bichel under that name, or
* an entire class of spin-offs of the original recipe (Arctic Carbonite, Ammonkarbonit, etc.); their common feature is that the percentage of combustible materials (
wood meal or
flour starch) is so high that most of the carbon in the reaction is bound into
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
and the temperature of
combustion
Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combus ...
is relatively low. Some
safety dynamites are carbonites.
References
Explosives
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