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mercury fulminate
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mercury fulminate

chemical compound

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blasting caps

  • coal miner loading a drill hole with an explosive
    In explosive: Blasting caps

    …90–10 and 80–20 mixtures of mercury fulminate and potassium chlorate for the pure fulminate. This did not affect the performance materially and provided a substantial economy. Mercury fulminate is an example of an explosive that can be both primary and secondary. In its more compressed form it is a high…

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detonating agents

  • Dow Chemical Company
    In chemical industry: Nitric acid

    [Pb(N3)2], silver azide (AgN3), and mercury fulminate [Hg(ONC)2]. These are not nitrates or nitro compounds, although some other detonators are, but they all contain nitrogen, and nitric acid is involved in their manufacture.

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  • coal miner loading a drill hole with an explosive
    In explosive: Nitroglycerin

    …settled on a charge of mercury fulminate, which had been known for many years, in a copper capsule. With one or two minor changes, this blasting cap remained in general use until the 1920s.

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blasting cap
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blasting cap

explosive device
Also known as: detonator
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Also called:
Detonator

blasting cap, device that initiates the detonation of a charge of a high explosive by subjecting it to percussion by a shock wave. In strict usage, the term detonator refers to an easily ignited low explosive that produces the shock wave, and the term primer, or priming composition, denotes a substance that produces a sudden burst of flame to ignite the detonator. The primer may be set off by the brief application of heat (from a burning fuse or an electrically heated wire), by friction, or by mechanical shock (like the impact of the firing pin of a gun).

Depending on the preferred method of initiating the explosion, the blasting cap may contain a primer alone or both a primer and a detonator.

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