Erythritol Tetranitrate (ETN) Synthesis

Erythritol tetranitrate is made through nitration of the polyol erythritol. It is quite powerful with a VoD around 7650 m/s, and is easily castable, which makes for an all-round great explosive. The reagents required are not that difficult to obtain, the process is fairly easy, and the yields are relatively good.

The most important reagent is the erythritol, sold as a sugar substitute.



Thank you to the people at the local low carb store for this. The other reagents needed are sulfuric acid and a nitrate salt. For this experiment I used 5 grams erythritol, 20 grams ammonium nitrate, and 30 ml sulfuric acid (to allow for ~35% excess nitric acid). This can be scaled up.

The ammonium nitrate was added to the sulfuric acid and allowed to dissolve. This was then chilled in a fridge. Once the acids were cooled the erythritol was added in portions with stirring, while keeping the temperature down. Temperature control is generally more of an issue when using larger amounts than this. The mix was stirred for a few minutes after the final addition and then left to sit for about half an hour longer with occasional stirring. This was then poured into about 500 ml cold water and a precipitate was instantly seen to settle to the bottom. After washings with water and some sodium bicarbonate in water, the product was left to dry.



The product can be purified by dissolving and recrystallizing, but I don't usually do this. The final yield here was about 8 grams. When using small amounts like this, the percentage loss during filtering etc. can be noticeable as opposed to when done in larger amounts.

I will do this again sometime using KNO3 as it apparently can give better yields.

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