Adrees Latif/Reuters
An aerial view of the aftermath of a huge explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Tex. The blast on Wednesday night was caused by a fire inside the plant.
While it is still not clear what caused the explosion at a fertilizer plant that destroyed or damaged much of West, Tex., on Wednesday, the disaster is a reminder that for all the good that fertilizers do in increasing crop yields, they can also prove lethal under certain conditions.
The plant had large amounts of two commercial fertilizers, anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate. Both chemicals have been linked to explosions in the past.
Anhydrous ammonia is a colorless, corrosive gas that is stored as a liquid under pressure; farmers inject it into the soil. "People mostly think of it as a toxic chemical that can cause breathing problems," said Sam Mannan, a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. "But it's also a flammable and explosive material."
The gas must mix with air in relatively high proportions to ignite, so it is less dangerous than natural gas or gasoline under ordinary conditions. But Dr. Mannan suggested one way an anhydrous ammonia explosion might occur: If during a fire an ammonia tank were to be breached, the gas would mix with the air until it reached the proper concentration, at which point it would be ignited by the fire. The catastrophe at the West plant began with a fire.
Ammonium nitrate, which is usually sold in granular form, can be mixed with fuel oil to become a powerful explosive that is used often in industry and occasionally by terrorists. But Dr. Mannan said that even by itself the chemical can explode under the right conditions — if it is heated in a confined space during a fire, for example.
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