All it takes is one knucklehead to go and do something stupid to screw things up for everyone. We’re not exactly sure who the knucklehead is behind the recent ban on hexamine fuel tablets, but given that it’s now proscribed in the UK under the “Control of Poisons and Explosives Precursors Regulations 2023,” we expect that that story is a doozy.
So what’s hexamine, and why should we care if it’s banned? As [Markus Bindhammer] explains, hexamine is a solid fuel commonly used to power model steam engines, among myriad other uses. Its ban leaves a bit of a hole in the model steam community, which [Markus] seeks to fill with this quick and easy gel fuel chemistry project.
The “California Snowball” is a homebrew version of what’s in those solid fuel cans you see heating chafing pans at catered events, with one common brand being Sterno. [Markus] used a saturated solution of calcium acetate (6 g in 50 ml of water) and added that to 150 ml of ethanol; commercial formulations usually use methanol to prevent anyone from drinking the stuff, with varying degrees of success. The calcium acetate forms a gel that looks like whipped cream and traps the ethanol inside. The gel can be easily scooped up and spread around, and burns with a clean, smokeless flame.
It may not exactly be a “plug and play” replacement for hexamine tablets, but one does what one can. And if there’s one thing we can celebrate about model steam engineers, it’s their persistence. We got a bunch of them together last year for a Hack Chat with [Quinn Dunki], and their passion for making things move with steam was pretty impressive.
Hexamine is a precursor for the simplest synthesis of the chemical explosive RDX; in many areas its availability is tightly regulated due to this.
Hexamine is a precursor of HMX, dinitrohexamine, and HMTD as well.
Correct, I am fairly certain there is an EU regulation that limits the amounts of hexamine you can buy/store. Same as nitromethane and high concentration sulfuric/nitric acid. A lot of it seems like an overreaction to the anarchist’s cookbooks that used to circle the internets
I have no idea if there’s a maximum, but the shops that sell Esbit fuel tablets in my EU country don’t say anything about a maximum number of boxes you can get.
They’re very common for use in camping stoves (including for the military) and in all model steam boilers. It would be really odd to ban them – i have never heard of anyone using esbit to make explosives.
Wikipedia says that “Hexamine is a precursor for the simplest synthesis of the chemical explosive RDX; in many areas its availability is tightly regulated due to this.”
It also says “… combustion can create formaldehyde, ammonia, nitrogen oxide, hydrogen cyanide… When burned, the chemical oxidation of the fuel yields noxious fumes, which requires cooking foods in a container, such as a pot or pan, with a tight fitting lid.”
Britain seems to have become a real nanny state, so I’m not surprised by the ban.
But the article is talking about UK. Now, thanks to Brexit, we’ve thrown off the oppressive yoke of the EU, so their regulations no longer apply!
Now the Brits have to copy all that “oppressive” EU stuff and make it extra strong to stay in business…
Regulated but not banned.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/1148/oj
And as always, vendors who don’t want to comply with these rules drop the products from their shelves and use a (non-existing) EU-wide ban as an excuse.
The British law can be found here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/63/contents/made
it’s quite similar to EU law, I can’t see anything that qualifies as “ban”.
See here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplying-explosives-precursors/supplying-explosives-precursors-and-poison
@Markus Bindhammer
Thanks for the link. I didn’t expect that there is no concentration or amount limit on hexamine and that obtaining a license seems to be not much different from getting a gun permit.
When hexamine is outlawed, only outlaws will have hexamine 🤣
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning….. it smells, like victory”
(essentially, that’s what he’s making – napalm is gel like, burns slow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRp7tYWnJJs
Nonsense. Napalm is an oil-based fuel, usually with aluminum soaps or polymers as thickeners. Because of its hydrophobic properties, napalm is difficult to extinguish with water or wash off the skin. This is hardly the case with ethanol.
Brings back memories…I still have a 1960s junior-high (even before middle school!) physical science book that described the prep of gelled alcohol. It was identical to the prep described herein. Was able to glom onto some calcium acetate, and made the stuff.
The difference in content and reading level between today’s 7th grade science book and the one from the 60s is…..sad.
eggs shells + vinegar (acetic acid) ==>> calcium acetate
Sounds like it might be difficult to ban this subsitute for the hexamine fuel tablets.
20,000,000,000 chickens say no way!
“We’re not exactly sure who the knucklehead is behind the recent ban on hexamine fuel tablets”
The citizens of democracies who allowed (voted for) the development of and then put up with the resulting edicts of bloated nanny states. Most of the world needs someone like Argentina’s Milei to take a figurative chain saw to the parasitic bloat.
Creating an open market for human organ sales? No, the world does not need more people like Milei. It would be nice to have a single solution for all countries, but Coke isn’t going to do it; it’s probably going to require a different solution where you are vs. where I am.
Roger that. As governments grow out of control they ALL become about serving themselves and not their citizens.
Nah. Rather not deal with strong and wrong.
So you are wanting a government that will immediately cut your net worth in half and then remove labor and environmental protection provisions so the people and land can be full exploited without accountability. Oh yeah, don’t forget to gut any social safety net programs to make it easier to exploit people. Milei might “create” (really transfer from others) some wealth, but I fear only a tiny tiny fraction (mostly robber barons) of the Argentina will ever see any of this wealth.
My heart cries for Argentina.
Who else is looking at that ice cream scoop and thinking.. Mmmm Tasty!
Does the salts used in fireworks light at this low burning temperature? You’ll got all the color flavours you want. Next add some nice smely things in the recipe.
Imagine, you light the ministove to make tea and the air fills with the smell of your choice. Barbecue, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and smoked barbecue. Mmmmhhhmmmmmm, what a delight.
Also the smoke will cast away the musquitos, but will atract hungry bears or, worse, hungry mama bears.
Have fun in the forrest!
Darn I missed this addition to the list of very useful but now hard to get stuff rules…
Really doesn’t make much sense to me either, if you want to make explosives and have a chemistry comprehension (or instructions created by somebody that does) you can always get from the stuff too required for every day life to ban to an explosive/poison easy enough. So getting rid of a precursor that is so useful for other things is barely even a speed bump for the nefarious actors but really annoying to everyone that had been using it.
And if you were planning to make lots of explosive buying unusually large quantities of these more easy route chemical precursors from one of the few places that sells them is a great way to be noticed – that is an awful lot of fertiliser for somebody that isn’t a farmer… But send a few folks out to buy a bottle bleach etc with cash to the almost limitless number of local stores that carry it. It probably cost you a tiny bit more and takes a tiny bit longer however it isn’t likely to get you noticed.
That said the license to be able to buy it isn’t that expensive to get and at least sounds like it should be easy to get for those with no criminal record. So at least this ‘ban’ only costs a few quid a year to get around legally and hopefully conveniently. Which makes it a small tax on your hobby, annoying but not the end of the world.
As said elsewhere chemistry at scale is hard. Either the persons kill themselves, or others trying.
Don’t have to run at any great scale though – just takes a bit of patience to run the processes at the smaller scales and probably lower yields you can easily manage multiple times (and to make sure the end of each processing stage you leave hanging around is stable enough to last). The sort of folks trying to make explosives illicitly that supposedly lead to these rules are not trying to single handedly produce a military or industrial supplier level of output, just a few kilo would be way more than enough.
Ah – memories of my steam engine. Yes there was a simple tray for Esbit tablets. I also recall a burner containing some fluffy stuff that you could pour methanol or alcohol in. So making an alcohol burner like that might be an easier long-term solution than having to make gel fuel.
Now I want a steam engine again…
Worst whipped cream ever!
Mmmm… forbidden whipped cream…
It sounds like a selfish steam issue.