From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: alt.engr.explosives
Subject: Re: Napalm Recipe(USE EXTREME CAUTION)
Date: 17 Oct 1995 07:40:19 GMT

In article <DGJttq.7vD@utu.fi>, arno@utu.fi (Arno Hahma) says:

>In article <45rnlb$ke5@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
>Gerald L. Hurst <glhurst@onr.com> wrote:
>
>>The original napalm was, in fact, gasoline gelled with soap. 
>>Most soaps are alkali metal salts of fatty acids.

>Have you actually tried that sometimes? Sodium salts of fatty acids are
>rather insoluble in gasoline.  Napalm is made by gelling gasoline with
>the _aluminium_ salts of fatty acids.  As far as I know, the stuff was
>originally made from the aluminum soaps of NAphtenic and PALMitic
>acids, hence its name. Nowadays, aluminium octoate is used
>and it gels gasoline very well, indeed.

I can't argue about the origin of the name since I know that most
standard reference works assign its origins to "naphthenic" and
"palmitic" acids. However, while I was working on napalm systems,
I heard other stories from people who should have known the history,
and they (perhaps incorrectly) associated the "Na" with "natrium"
rather than "naphthenic." Personally, I don't mind either way.

Certainly, the aluminum soaps are superior gellants for gasoline, but
I was unaware that anyone was still using soap systems, sodium,
aluminum or otherwise.

Fatty acid salts are not very soluble in gasoline?  Why would you 
want a gelling agent to be very soluble?

>>here note that ordinary grease is a mixture of oil and a soap,
>>in other words it's like the old napalm with a high flash point.
>
>The greases would be just about as thick without the soap.
>The soaps (usually lithium, calcium or zinc salts) are there
>to improve the lubricating properties of the vaseline, not
>to gel it.

Surely you jest. Ah, I see. You think that vaseline and grease
are essentially the same thing. Not so. Vaseline is a semisolid
mixture of mostly highly branched, high molecular weight 
aliphatic hydrocarbons having high viscosity and some degree
of thyxotropy. The greases we are talking about are oils whch
have been thickened with soaps. For instance, you can make a
high temperature bearing grease from engine oil combined with
tallow, stearic acid and caustic soda. Now, engine oil is
readily pourable, but the product grease has a dropping point
of 170 deg C. Note that the soaps are made in situ because
(you guessed it) sodium soaps are not very soluble in engine
oil.

It is important that you learn that although vaseline is a grease,
not all greases are vaseline. Else you could find yourself using a
sodium soap axel grease as throat ointment.

>Napalm is very different to grease from its consistancy.
>Vaselines are usually tixotropic while napalm is just the
>opposite of it; it'll flow no matter how viscous you make it.

This probably accounts for my sticky coaster wheels. I better 
switch to Vick's Vap-O-Rub.

>>Later formulations such as napalm-B used styrene to thicken
>>a mixture which included gasoline and an aromatic hydrocarbon.
>
>Polystyrene, that is. Polystyrene dissolves in about any aromatic
>hydrocarbon. If you dilute the aromatic solution with an aliphatic
>hydrocarbon, the polystyrene precipitates partly and forms a gel like
>mass of the whole. Still, the mixture has to contain a high percentage
>of aromatics. Ordinary gasoline will not make napalm with polystyrene.

Hmm. I thought I mentioned the aromatics. Yes, styrene polymer
by all means lest the formulation be more deadly to the formulator
than to his intended victim. Never say "vinyl."

>>Napalm is really very boring stuff not worth wasting the time to
>>make it. There are a lot more interesting things for fledgling
>
>Well, it is nice to put napalm into a "gasoline bomb" to get a big
>fireball.  Gelling the gasoline slows down combustion and the fireball
>will last longer than without the gelling. Movie effects people do that
>sorts of things; it does look spectacular like you can see in the
>movies.

Nice? Hmm. Are you sure of that? I know the fire last longer in glops,
but how much longer does the fire ball last?

Jerry

From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: alt.engr.explosives
Subject: Re: Napalm Recipe(USE EXTREME CAUTION)
Date: 18 Oct 1995 05:22:59 GMT
Organization: Consulting Chemist
Lines: 93

In article <DGJttq.7vD@utu.fi>, arno@utu.fi (Arno Hahma) says:

>In article <45rnlb$ke5@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
>Gerald L. Hurst <glhurst@onr.com> wrote:
>
>>The original napalm was, in fact, gasoline gelled with soap. 
>>Most soaps are alkali metal salts of fatty acids. In particular
>>sodium (or natrium, Na) palmitate was used in the standard
>
>Have you actually tried that sometimes? Sodium salts of fatty acids are
>rather insoluble in gasoline.  Napalm is made by gelling gasoline with
>the _aluminium_ salts of fatty acids.  As far as I know, the stuff was
>originally made from the aluminum soaps of NAphtenic and PALMitic
>acids, hence its name. Nowadays, aluminium octoate is used
>and it gels gasoline very well, indeed.

Arno, it's time for your bimonthly chemistry/history lesson.
As you may know, the WWII version of napalm was invented around
1942 and it was, indeed, made of gasoline gelled by a mixture of
aluminum fatty acid salts of coconut oil or the like (i.e. oil
yielding inter alia palmitic acid) and naphthenic acid from 
petroleum sources.

However, gelled petroleum products go back a long way before 
long-chain aluminum salts were patented as improved thickeners
or grease formers for petroleum liquids.  

You will remember that in my last message, I pointed out that 
greases are often made from lighter oils by gelling with a 
whole host of metal soaps. I was indirectly trying to show 
that, despite the low solubility of sodium salt fatty acids, 
which you mentioned, these salts are perfectly capable of 
gelling not only oils but also gasoline.

Your question was "Have you tried this?" Well, the fact is that
I learned about and fooled with such materials over forty years
ago. Back when axle grease was made from oil and white soap,
people were also making and using gasoline, gelled with the same
white sodium palmitate, stearate or oleate soap, as a fire starter 
and spot remover.  Look in any formulary published before the 
American involvement in WWII and you will find procedures for 
making these materials from sodium hydroxide and the same coconut 
oil used in the later aluminum salt-based napalm formulations.
You will also find numerous petroleum liquids converted to
greases using combinations of coconut/palm oils and naphthenic 
acids saponified and/or neutralized with caustic soda alone or 
in combination with lime.

Now you can see why I wrote:

>>here note that ordinary grease is a mixture of oil and a soap,
>>in other words it's like the old napalm with a high flash point.
>
>The greases would be just about as thick without the soap.
>The soaps (usually lithium, calcium or zinc salts) are there
>to improve the lubricating properties of the vaseline, not
>to gel it.

We've already shown in the last round of discussion that this is
not so. Rather, soaps thicken oils into greases and "grease"
does not equal "vaseline."

>Napalm is very different to grease from its consistancy.
>Vaselines are usually tixotropic while napalm is just the
>opposite of it; it'll flow no matter how viscous you make it.

It should be pretty obvious now that pre-napalm-B napalm really 
is a grease, a flammable one based on very low viscosity liquids,
and aluminum fatty acid salts and not a "vaseline" material, but 
still a grease. Obviously there are all kinds of greases with 
all kinds of properties, just as there are all kinds of oils.

Sorry, I'm not going to publish a "recipe." but if any of the
knowledgeable folks in the forum wish to review some of the
old formulations, I'll be happy to email a couple of examples
for their historical interest. I clearly won't send any such
material unless I already know from the quality of the posts
that the recipient knows more than enough about the subject 
to formulate comparable materials without any input from me.

It's always good to hear from you, Arno. I look forward to
your correcting my error-ridden posts again in your next
visit to the alt.engr.explosives forum, say next December.
It is a tradition I would miss :)

Jerry

From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: alt.engr.explosives
Subject: Re: Re.: Re: Re.: Re: Atomization of particles
Date: 14 Nov 1995 21:12:29 GMT
Organization: Consulting Chemist
Lines: 64

In article <48amgk$7sl@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, maltek@aol.com (MalteK) says:

>Im Artikel <47jbug$4cb@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L.
>Hurst) schreibt:
>
>>I don't think the air force agrees with you. They seem to
>>prefer the napalm-B formlations, which do not rely on metal
>>soaps as gelling agents.
>>
>>Jerry
>
>TIBA is not a gelling agent, or at least not to my knowledge, nor would it
>be a metal soap by classic definition.  But it does ignite when it touches
>air instantly ( when it is dissolved in gasoline), which makes it pretty
>aggressive.

Mr. Maltek, I am not sure what you are talking about. If "TIBA"
is triisobutylaluminum, then it is neither a gelling agent nor
an ingredient of napalm-B.  TIBA is a pyrophoric material, like
other aluminum alkyls. That is, it bursts into flame on contact 
with air.

Have you ever actually worked with a real napalm bomb? They are
not tough-skinned ordnance like explosive bombs but are, instead,
made of sheet aluminum which you could puncture with a 
well-thrown rock.

Before you were born [:)] I worked on two projects involving 
these bombs. In one case we constructed a portable explosives 
pilot plant in a semi-trailer, drove the unit from Seattle to 
Fort Walton Beach, Florida where we manufactured several 
thousand pounds of gelled liquid high explosive which was loaded 
into napalm bomb casings for helicopter LZ clearance tests.  Let 
me tell you that we had to handle those aluminum casings with 
great care to avoid damaging these very heavy devices. The 
thought of loading one of those shells with a pyorophoric 
material sounds to me like a job from Hell.

In another project, we developed explosive ignition/dispersal 
systems for regular napalm bombs to replace the white 
phosphorus nose cone units then in use.  A problem arose 
during the Viet War when many of the bombs, delivered by
dive bomber, merely created "hibachis" of naplam burning
in the craters created in the soft earth by high speed 
impact.  The energetic method of delivery was necessitated
by the pilots being unwilling  to act as sitting ducks by
using a low altitude level flight pattern for the drops.

By replacing the WP cannisters with similar units containing
a high-temperature, high-blast explosive we were able to
simultaneously blow the napalm out of the crater and ignite it.

The explosive units were very much tougher than the bomb 
shells, and they could be screwed into the bomb just prior to 
a mission, providing safety during storage and transportation.

Perhaps you can explain to us what reasoning would allow 
the manufacture of thousands of thin-skinned ordnance units
containing hundreds of pounds of pyrophoric napalm each.
I can see using the material in a nose cone as an alternative
to WP, but not dispersed through the main fuel load.

Jerry  

From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics
Subject: Re: Napalm
Date: 24 Jan 1996 18:24:04 GMT

In article <4e53ab$md3@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, dlswank@aol.com (DLSwank) says:

>glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst) inquires:
>>Weren't those B-17s over Dresden? Or some other type smaller than
>>B-29s? I'm not telling, just asking.
>
>YEP. Slip of the keys. I was only in third grade, so all I have is
>hearsay and books to go on.  The B-29s did Tokyo, Dresden/Cologne
>would have been B-17s, maybe some B-25s.  (Am fairly sure Tokyo
>was WP, don't really know which raids in Europe used which.)
>
>It also seems to me that napalm appeared fairly late in WWII
>and was used much more in Korea and later. 

I believe Dresden was also WP. Some of the stories included
macabre tales of people who got phosphorus on their skin or
clothes and jumped into the river to put out the fire. On 
emerging from the water the fire would begin again. I cannot 
testify to the veracity of the stories, but they do indicate
the use of WP rather than napaln.  Pictures of the bombings
also look more like WP than napalm - bright white flare & white
smoke.

Jerry (Ico)

From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics
Subject: Re: Napalm
Date: 25 Jan 1996 14:44:41 GMT

In article <swalker.1397.000B3DDA@wpo.nerc.ac.uk>, swalker@wpo.nerc.ac.uk
(Stephen Walker) says:

>In article <4e5tg4$r1h@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L.
>Hurst) writes:
>
>>I believe Dresden was also WP. Some of the stories included
>>macabre tales of people who got phosphorus on their skin or
>>clothes and jumped into the river to put out the fire. On 
>>emerging from the water the fire would begin again. I cannot 
>>testify to the veracity of the stories, but they do indicate
>>the use of WP rather than napaln.  Pictures of the bombings
>>also look more like WP than napalm - bright white flare & white
>>smoke.
>
>I remember a diagram in a book I had a few years ago, showing at least one 
>design of napalm incendiary. The bomb had a HE core and layers of both wp and 
>napalm. 

The standard napalm bomb in Viet Nam used a WP igniter, usually
as a nosecone fitting activated, I believe I remember being told, 
by a 50 caliber bullet arrangement. I've worked with the 
screw in cannisters, but not the bullet mechanism - testing for
ignition and dispersion via hot high explosives.

I agree that napalm is a nasty piece of work. I decided many
years ago to work only on commercial explosives. Viey Nam was
a too slowly learned lesson in the moral responsibility of
non-combatants.

Jerry (Ico)

From: greenla@umich.edu (Lee Green MD MPH)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military
Subject: Re: Lets talk NAPALM
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 23:51:11 -0500

In article <4eshcu$brm@nkosi.well.com>, wab@well.sf.ca.us (Wild Bill
Cannastra) wrote:

> Cut the crap yourself, Ed.  Mayhaps you're still feeling a little
...
> Incendiary munitions--napalm, WP, or good ol' flamethrowers--can
> only kill or wound by immolation, and in rare cases by
> asphyxiation.  Degree and severity of wounds inflicted is only part
> of a munition's effect; the nature of the wound and the rate at
> which it is effected can be the more salient factor, especially
> with incindiaries.  Burning to death over the course of a couple of
> minutes, every nerve ending in your flesh screaming with agony, is
> nothing like being killed immediately by the blast effect of a Snakeye or
> 105 shell.  And living encased in keloid tissue is nothing like
> getting by minus a leg.

As regular denizens of r.a.m. know, two things are against my policy here:
saying anything nice about the B-1B, and agreeing with Ed :-)  But every
policy has exceptions...

I'm not defending any means of dismembering, disfiguring, or killing human
beings.  But I would point out two things.  First, the notion that
blast/frag weapons kill quickly, or just take off a limb, or don't cause
severe burn wounds, is incorrect.  They're just as inhumane as
incendiaries, as far as I can tell.  Napalm has a terror effect, promoted
by press reports of the Vietnam era, but objectively HE is just as nasty.

Second, the notion of burning to death over a protracted period in
full-body-surface agony is a powerful emotional image, not well supported
by fact.  Immolation produces very rapid loss of blood pressure,
unconsciousness, and death in a short time.  (Burning at the stake was
torment because it was done slowly.)  Third degree burns are typically not
painful at the time, either, as only the cutaneous (skin) nerves respond
to heat and full-thickness (third-degree) burns kill the nerves.  Severe
second-degree burns such as likely to be suffered by someone hit with a
small splash of napalm are the severely painful ones, the ones likely to
be survived, and likely to produce keloids.  But HE produces plenty of
those too, and adds ruptured viscera, brain damage, fractures, and other
unpleasant features.

I guess the bottom line is that I think arguing over whether incinerating
people or dismembering them is "more inhumane" is silly.

Subject: Re: soap used in explosives ?
From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Date: Nov 15 1996
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics

In article <19961114104100.FAA19061@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
gothicmoos@aol.com says:

>well, during the development of napalm, i heard they tried just about
>anything out there... they got gasoline and added various things to it..
>and experimented till they got something that worked good enough for
>them.. during the viet nam war, its said that there were many hundreds of
>different "napalm" solutions. who knows... maybe the military uses joy
>soap... since its relativly cheap <well.. i should stop right here,
>because we know the military cant stand cheap things :P>.. and it sticks
>incredibly well to things.. gasolene is so... umm.. its really too thin...
>but joy soap will stick to things a lot better, and itll stay there.. 

Gothic, consider that the originators of napalm merely used conventional
lubricating grease technology bassically no different than that used 
by folks in the 19th century to make axle grease.

Oil + metal soap = axle grease

gasoline + metal soap = napalm.  

Palmitic and naphthenic acids make suitable and cheap metal soaps, but
other acids long-chain organic acids will also work.

Greases form because the soaps take the form of filamentous gels, i.e.,
stringy networks through the oil or gasoline.

In WWII times there were not many plastic resins yet invented.  Now
there exist many oil-soluble polymers of high molecular weight that
will disperse in and thicken hydrocarbons.  When polystyrene became
widely available and cheap, it was obvious for the military guys
to make a new formulation replacing the soaps.  If the gasoline was
high in alkanes they had to add some aromatic component (benzene) to
improve the solubility of the polystyrene.  Reformate gasolines
typically already contain a high amount of aromatics so most modern 
gasoline alone plus polystyrene will also work.

I knew the AF Major who actually did the formulation work on the 
Viet Nam stuff; it was not a very difficult or complicated project.

Jerry (Ico)

-----

Subject: Re: soap used in explosives ?
From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Date: Nov 15 1996
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics

In article <36802.169.uupcb@accbbs.com>, robert.goodman@accbbs.com
(Robert Goodman) says:

>-> I always wondered wether napalm stands for Na (Sodium) Palmitate...
>-> Rembert
>
>Close.  It's NAptha and PALMitic acid.  If it were sodium palmitate,
>it'd just rinse off.
>
>But I'm pretty sure Palmolive is palm + olive.  And speaking of lipids,
>Canola oil gets its name from CANadian + OLA (oil).

Sodium palmitate is not right but it is a very logical guess.  Greases
are made from oils and fatty acid salts.  Sodium salts do not make the
best possible greases but the principle is sound and one could make
a grease-like material from a hydrocarbon mixture and sodium palmitate.

I too have half suspected that the name originally derived from the very
common sodium palmitate soaps and that the inventor simply said "Hey,
naphthenic and palmitic acid salts of aluminum work even better and I 
can still use the acronum NAPALM."  This is history as it ought to be
as opposed to how it really was -- but who knows? :)

Jerry (Ico) 

Subject: Re: soap used in explosives ?
From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Date: Nov 16 1996
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics

In article <19961116075500.CAA09973@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
gothicmoos@aol.com says:

>so you actually are promoting me making napalm? ahha i thought i had a bad
>enough reputation around here already that that would be the farthest
>thing from your mind :P but tell me, whats the difference between bar soap
>and joy in napalm mixtures?

Glad you asked. Joy "soap" is not really a soap, it is a detergent. A
true soap is a fatty acid salt of a metal such as sodium, potassium,
aluminum, etc.  Soaps are only slightly soluble in water and thus not
suitable for liquid preparations.  Not being a real soap, Joy would
not be able to form the gel network necessary to make the original
napalm.  It is POSSIBLE that a greasy material could be formed from
gasoline and liquid detergent under the right conditions, but that 
substance would derive its viscosity from a completely different 
phenomenon -- water-in-oil emulsion formation.  WIO emulsions are
a bit tricky to make so it is a toss-up whether the tales of Joy
napalm are based on juvenile imagination or on the fortuitous 
preparation of the somewhat uncommon WIO emulsion.  

If you are wondering what a WIO emulsion looks like, take a peak at a 
can of GOJO (sp?), the stuff mechanics use to wash their hands. It 
is basically emulsified kerosene which combines the solvent properties 
of oil and water.

Jerry (Ico)

Subject: Re: soap used in explosives ?
From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Date: Nov 17 1996
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics

In article <543ey9i670.fsf@puli.cisco.com>, billw@puli.cisco.com
(William ) says:

>    It is POSSIBLE that a greasy material could be formed from
>    gasoline and liquid detergent under the right conditions, but that 
>    substance would derive its viscosity from a completely different 
>    phenomenon -- water-in-oil emulsion formation.  WIO emulsions are
>    a bit tricky to make so it is a toss-up whether the tales of Joy
>    napalm are based on juvenile imagination or on the fortuitous 
>    preparation of the somewhat uncommon WIO emulsion. 
>
>    [did I read the rest of the post (ie, the part above)]
>
>Hmm.  Water in Oil emulsions include mayonaise, hollendaise, Buerre Blanc,
>and assorted other sauces which I have made.  As you say, they're normally a
>bit tricky to make, and I was basing my comments on the Joy/gas actually
>working on an assumption that this was not what was happening.  On the other
>hand, detergents' main purpose in life is to ease the mixing of oil/water,
>and they could have drastic effects on the whole process.  Still, the
>Joy/gasoline mix doesn't seem to behave the way it ought to if it were an
>OIW emulsion - in particular, it doesn't need any violent mixing to become
>thick.  Why don't you try it out and see what you think?

Bill, I will be glad to test it, but I have to tell you that mayonnaise,
etc. are not wio emulsions, they are oiw emulsions.  It is not always
obvious which is which because both can have grease-like character if
there is a limited amount of the continuous phase.  They are grease-like
because the dispersed phase has so much volume that the wannabe 
microspheres are distorted into faceted polyhedra with curved edges
and a lot of shared interfaces.

Interestingly, even experienced chemists seem to assume mayonnaise is
a wio substance.  Here's a simple test to determine what kind of emulsion
you've got: put a drop of water on the material -- if it beads then it is
wio,

In general, wio emulsions are much rarer than the other kind.  They are
best made in a high shear mixer but motionless mixers are often used in
industry.  A food processor (cuisinart) works very well for laboratory
purposes.  

Now, if the joy mixture is a wio and is very viscous, you would expect
to have to use a lot of Joy to give the necessary high volume of 
dispersed phase and that would mean a lot of undesirable water in the
mixture. It makes more sense to assume that you did indeed make a 
mayonnaise-like oiw emulsion.

It is my fault for cutting my original post short without considering
that a viscous oiw emulsion is even easier to make than a wio analog.
After all, that is what Joy is supposed to do when it removes grease
as a normally more dilute oiw emulsion.

It is interesting to track one's own thought processes.  I neglected to
consider oiw materials in my first response to the napalm post because
in my earlier years I spent a lot of time studying explosive emulsions
in a field where the oiw materials are what you get when the experiment 
goes bad and your mixture "inverts."  There is a lot of interesting 
chemistry of explosives worth discussing in the unexplored recent 
history of evolution of OIW vs WIO emulsions in commercial explosives, 
but it will have to wait for another day. 

I should add that my first post drifted somewhat from the prime 
objective, which should have been to express succinctly what now 
follows:

In the world of colloidal dispersions there are two rather distinct
categories -- emulsions and gels.  Napalm belongs to the family of
gels while the Joy formulations belong to the emulsions.  The emulsions
in their purest (and dilute) state are comprised of spheres of one 
liquid phase floating in a second, immiscible liquid and carrying an 
electrical charge.  The gels are like three dimensional film or fiber 
networks encompassing a separate liquid phase something like a sponge 
saturated with water on a microscopic cell level. Both of these classes
have been and are widely represented in commercial explosives ranging
over about a century from "Giant Gelatin" to Cook's water gels to the 
more recent (Hal) Bluhm water-based emulsions. 

Jerry (Ico)