Block-Busting Secret

The U.S. Army gave chemists a clue to the shattering power of blockbuster bombs dropped on Germany in the past few months. The clue is hexamine, one of the ingredients in the explosive with which blockbusters are packed for quick and shattering destruction.

Use of the new explosive was announced to newsmen last week at the award of an Army & Navy "E"' pennant to a Du Pont plant at Perth Amboy, N.J., where hexamine is made. The other ingredients of the explosive are secret, but the Army described its properties: it explodes faster and more violently than TNT. Apparently it has been used so far only in bombs, for which it is ideal.

No new product, hexamine (full name: hexamethylenetetramine) has been recognized by chemists for years as having explosive possibilities. It is a white granular substance that looks and feels like sugar, is chemically compounded from ammonia gas and formaldehyde (which in turn is produced from wood alcohol).

In making hexamine for the new explosive, key trick was to turn out the chemical in a special grade. The size of the granules had to be changed from earlier manufacture; moisture content and other properties also had to be changed and closely governed in manufacture.

Du Pont's process, now used in all hexamine plants, combines liquid formaldehyde and liquid ammonia to form hexamine by a secret method. The solution is then passed into an evaporator, where it is boiled down into crystalline form. This substance is dried, ground and shipped in powder form to explosives plants. Said a Du Pont worker: "We never see the finished product. But Hitler does--plenty."

Unlike TNT, which calls for ammonia, sulfuric and nitric acids and toluene, hexamine requires no critical materials. Its basic raw ingredients are coke, air and water. Total production in U.S. in '1941 was 4,000,000 lb. New factories built since then have multiplied that output many times. But before war came, hexamine was a minor industrial product. Its chief uses then were in the manufacture of plastics and as an ingredient in an antiseptic for the urinary tract.

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