Lead Azide Manufacturer & Supplier
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BÖRÜ Defense is a manufacturer and supplier of Lead Azide, serving defence industry customers worldwide from Karatay/Konya, TÜRKİYE. Every delivery comes with a certificate of analysis and a safety data sheet, together with the export documentation its destination requires.
What is Lead Azide?
The lead azide is an explosive initiator, being more efficient than mercury fulminate. It requires a higher temperature for spontaneous combustion and does not decompose during long storage periods at moderately elevated temperatures. When compressed into a capsule, lead azide ignites detonating or exploding the spark, but not as immediately as mercury fulminate. For this reason, the main charge initiation of a blasting cap composed of Pb(N3)2 is generally mixed in defined proportions with lead styphnate or other sensitizers to cause the explosion more easily, though with a less violentflame, which serves to initiate the explosion of azide.
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About Lead Azide
The sensitivity to shock and friction rapidly increases in proportion as the particle size increases. Crystals of 1 mm in length are subject to a spontaneous explosion due to the energy content that they possess. Lead azide should not have needleshaped crystals with a length greater than 0.1 mm. Lead azide with dextrin may appear to be safely stored under water for a long time. However, there is a belief that crystallized azide becomes more sensitive when stored under water due to an increase in the size of the crystals. Lead azide is produced in two crystal forms: orthorhombic (α), density 4.71 and monoclinic (β), density 4.93. The formation of the orthorhombic form, very sensitive, prevented the mixture of a diluted solution of lead nitrate and sodium azide, with which lead azide is prepared.
Lead Azide Manufacturer
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History of Lead Azide
The chemistry of azides begins with the German chemist Theodor Curtius, who discovered hydrazoic acid in 1890 and described lead azide the following year. Its explosive character was noticed at once, but several early accidents slowed practical work. In the first decade of the twentieth century patents proposed it as a replacement for mercury fulminate in detonators, and industrial production started in Europe in the years around the First World War.
Between the two world wars lead azide displaced mercury fulminate in most military and commercial detonators, because it stored better and contained no mercury. Producers also introduced modified grades, such as dextrinated lead azide, that are safer to handle in the factory. By the Second World War it was the standard detonator filling in many countries, and it kept that position for decades. In recent decades research has concentrated on lead-free replacements.
What are the Uses of Lead Azide?
Lead azide is a primary explosive, and nearly all of it goes into initiating devices. In defence it is found in the detonators of artillery, mortar, rocket and aircraft bomb fuzes, in demolition stores, and in the safety and arming devices of guided weapons. Aerospace systems use it in the initiators that operate separation bolts, cable cutters and similar one-shot mechanisms.
In civil industry the same compound is used in the electric, non-electric and electronic detonators made for mining, quarrying, tunnelling and controlled demolition. Seismic exploration and the perforation of oil and gas wells also rely on detonators that contain it. Outside these fields it has no consumer application, and it is supplied only to licensed manufacturers of ammunition and initiating systems. It should not be confused with sodium azide, a different compound that was long used in vehicle airbag inflators.
Advantages of Lead Azide
- It keeps its properties through long storage, including in hot climates where mercury fulminate fails.
- It is a very efficient initiator, which allows detonators and fuze components to be made small.
- It contains no mercury, and this removed a serious health and corrosion problem from detonator production.
- It is practically insoluble in water, which helps devices filled with it to remain dependable over a long service life.
- Decades of military and commercial specifications exist for it, so quality requirements and test methods are well established and understood across the industry.
Disadvantages of Lead Azide
- It is a lead compound. Lead is a cumulative poison that harms the nervous system, blood formation and reproduction.
- It is highly sensitive to impact, friction and static electricity, so it can be handled only in specialised facilities by trained staff.
- In the presence of moisture it can react with copper and copper alloys to form copper azides, which are even more sensitive. This restricts the metals that may be used around it.
- Its use and disposal release lead into soil, water and air, which creates clean-up costs at test sites, ranges and production plants.
- In the European Union it is listed as a substance of very high concern under REACH, and similar pressure elsewhere is driving the search for lead-free initiators.
- Storage and transport are tightly regulated under explosives law, which adds cost and administrative work.
Lead Azide specifications
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| CAS number | 13424-46-9 |
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