Production
Production is by the reaction of pentaerythritol with concentrated nitric acid to form a precipitate which can be recrystallized from acetone to give processable crystals.
- C(CH2OH)4 + 4 HNO3 → C(CH2ONO2)4 + 4 H2O
Variations of a method first published in a US Patent 2,370,437 by Acken and Vyverberg (1945 to Du Pont) forms the basis of all current commercial production.
PETN is manufactured by numerous manufacturers as a powder about the consistency of fine popcorn salt, or together with nitrocellulose and plasticizer as thin plasticized sheets (e.g. Primasheet 1000 or Detasheet). PETN residues are easily detectable in hair of people handling it. The highest residue retention is on black hair; some residues remain present even after washing.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
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—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)