Explosives based on hydrogen peroxide - a historical review and novel applications

Highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide solutions have been widely known and used as rocket mono-propellants and oxidisers in the aerospace industry. However, the use of hydrogen peroxide is becoming more and more important in other fields of modern industry – being applicable to novel formulations of base high explosives for use in mining as a kind of industrial “green explosive”. The authors, explain the facts and dispel some of the myths concerning both the medium and the potentially explosive mixtures based on it. The method of preparation and safe handling of 98%+ hydrogen peroxide is briefly presented and advocated by some of the experimental and literature examples. The paper contains both historical and modern approaches to concentrated hydrogen peroxide based mixtures that have been reported as undergoing detonation. The safety concerns, especially those related to their potential explosiveness during preparation, handling or utilisation are analysed as well. New potential applications of hydrogen peroxide based mixtures that can be used as industrial explosives with low NOx emission levels are presented. The potential of the medium as a “green” and easy to handle oxidising compound that may replace ammonium nitrate in a variety of emulsion and blended ANFO-emulsion commercial explosives that currently constitute the majority of explosives used in the mining industry, is underlined.