Determination of water, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate content in ‘water-in-oil’ emulsions using TG and DSC

The main component of an emulsion explosive is a water-in-oil emulsion consisting of a supersaturated ammonium nitrate (AN) water phase, finely dispersed in an oil phase. Quantitative determination of nearly all the components in a W/O emulsion is possible using thermogravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Isothermal TG measurements enable determination of water content, while cycled DSC measurements allow the amount of ammonium nitrate to be determined. In the case that sodium nitrate (SN) is also added to AN as an oxidizing agent, it is necessary to quantitatively separate both salts from organic matter with diethyl ether. On the basis of the TG curve of the precipitated salts, the amount of AN can then be calculated, and that of SN is obtained from TG measurement of the original sample.