fulminate salt
Sign in to saveAlso known as fulminate, fulminates
Fulminates are chemical compounds which include the fulminate ion (). The fulminate ion is a pseudohalic ion because its charge and reactivity are similar to those of the halogens. The name is derived from the Latin fulminātus, meaning to explode like lightning, and reflects that fulminate salts are friction-sensitive explosives due to the instability of the ion. The best known is mercury(II) fulminate, which has been used as a primary explosive in detonators. Fulminates can be formed from metals, such as silver and mercury, dissolved in nitric acid, and reacted with ethanol. The weak single n
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- salt
Show 1 more fact
- topic's main category
- Category:Fulminates
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Historical notes
- Compounds
- See also
- References
{{chembox |ImageFile = ^-{C}{\equiv}\overset{+}{N}-O^- |Section1= |Section2= }}
Fulminates are chemical compounds which include the fulminate ion (). The fulminate ion is a pseudohalic ion because its charge and reactivity are similar to those of the halogens. The name is derived from the Latin fulminātus, meaning to explode like lightning, and reflects that fulminate salts are friction-sensitive explosives due to the instability of the ion. The best known is mercury(II) fulminate, which has been used as a primary explosive in detonators. Fulminates can be formed from metals, such as silver and mercury, dissolved in nitric acid, and reacted with ethanol. The weak single nitrogen-oxygen bond is responsible for their instability. Nitrogen very easily forms a stable triple bond to another nitrogen atom, forming nitrogen gas.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “fulminate salt” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.