Chem unit assists in removal of 40,000 gallons of nitric acid

Multi-National Force - Iraq ^ | Spc. Stephanie Homan

[SandRat]

FALLUJAH — The 329th Chemical Platoon, Task Force Phantom, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, participated in a joint operation July 12-17 to recover a large quantity of nitric acid found in a cache in the city of Fallujah.

The platoon, a reserve unit from Winter Park, Fla., helped remove of 40,000 gallons of the acid, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Hart, platoon leader, 329th Chem. Platoon, TF Phantom, MNC-I.

Nitric acid is a toxic, acidic, colorless liquid used to make fertilizers, dyes, explosives and other chemicals.

Twenty Soldiers from the platoon worked in conjunction with Marines from Multi-National Force-West and Soldiers from Multi-National Division-Center on the four-day mission to complete the task.

“Our mission was to aid in the recovery of the nitric acid,” Hart said. “Our job is to secure it so it cannot be manufactured and made into homemade explosives that are used against Coalition Forces,” Hart said.

Army Capt. Eric Dunkley, commander, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, TF Phantom, MNC-I, said he feels involvement in missions like this improves safety of Soldiers on the battlefield and deeply impacts chemical Soldiers down the road.

“They support MNC-I not just for (hazardous material) identification, but to see that it is properly stored and moved for disposal,” he said. “The majority of the work they have done here not only impacts the units in the affected battle space but the schoolhouse training in the rear. The unit is having a large impact.”

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News at Home and Abroad You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

Or if they do report it, without the anti-War Agenda Spin!

[Steely Tom]

That was not nitric acid! It was baby milk, from the baby milk factory!

[Billthedrill]

Yeh - Saddam supposedly dropped an entire schoolbus full of prisoners into a pool of the stuff, one at a time. They liked to use it on human skin to extract confessions, too. Nice folks.

[GingisK]

Nitric acid is a toxic, acidic, colorless liquid used...

Nitric acid is brownish red.

[Hardastarboard]

And mix nitric acid with glycerin and you get . . .

[SteveMcKing]

Why don’t they sell it? Surely some chemical corporation would make good use of it.

[VOA]

Nitric acid is brownish red.

Just in my own experience...
On the biochemistry stockroom shelf....the solution of conc. nitric
acid that are fresh and unopened (direct from the factory)
are essentially transparent to the eye.
(made by J.T. Baker, IIRC)

BUT, once opened, they do go rusty-red after a while (hours? days? weeks?).

Admittedly, I don't know the chemical process that causes the
appearance of this pigment upon exposure to the atmosphere.

I've helped move a number of biochem/chem labs and those opened
bottles of conc. nitric acid are most decidedly rusty-red in hue.

[patton]

If it had been picric acid. I would be pretty darn impressed...

40k pounds of sheer horror...

[bluefish]

What about hydric acid? Now that can be one seriously dangerous and deadly industrial solvent, and it is everywhere too. Most people don’t realize how much their own homes, and even their food supply, are contaminated by the stuff.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Picric acid was one of the main components in the 1917 Halifax Explosion.

[VOA]

If it had been picric acid. I would be pretty darn impressed...

I can't remember if it's dried or simply crystallized picric acid
that is "exciting".

40 kg? Even if it's clearly in solution and obstensibly safe...
I'd outsource it to some of the Gitmo inmates by offering them a
week-long "business vacation" to "an unspecified Islamic Republic"!!!

[patton]

544k pounds of DRY picric?

Dang. No wonder the death toll was so high.

That is astounding.

[patton]

Even the bark of a birch is a bitch, when properly refined.

[RC51]

How does 40,000 gallons of this stuff get INTO Falluja??

[patton]

...and 72 virgins.

[spunkets]

" Nitric acid is brownish red."

No, the story was right. The reddish brown comes from decomposition. That's a warm NO₂* radical that causes that color.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Yep, it was the largest man made explosion until Trinity.

[PAR35]

What about hydric acid?

Have you tried mixing it with Hydrogen Hydroxide?

[stboz]

Have you tried mixing it with Hydrogen Hydroxide?

You guys are all wet.