Napalm On Screen Chemistry
Napalm On Screen Chemistry
Napalm On Screen Chemistry
know?
In Fight Club, Tyler
Durden is quite the
amateur chemist as
well as his napalm
recipe, he also explains
how to make soap by
hydrolysing fat. Fat that
he steals from a
liposuction clinic!
On-screen chemistry
Napalm: its devastating effects
on-screen and off
Jonathan Hare investigates these destructive chemicals
mixed with orange juice concentrate
that provides the sticky oil. Napalms
name comes from two of the compounds
used to make the oily gel in the first
preparations: naphthenic and palmitic
acids. Liquid fuels burn quickly, but mixing
them with a gel allows the fuel to burn
with a hot slow flame, thereby maximising
the damage it does to buildings,
vegetation and, of course, people.
Total destruction
When it is dropped from an aircraft, a single napalm
bomb is capable of completely destroying an area
covering thousands of square meters. Napalm was
dropped on German and Japanese cities in the
second world war and used extensively by the US in
Vietnam from 1950s to 1970s. It is particularly feared
because, unlike standard bombs and bullets, it flows
and spreads very effectively napalm is not easy to
escape. For example, it can form a river of burning
liquid that can flow into hidden underground trenches
like no other weapon.
Now that the use and appalling effects of napalm have
been well documented, many humanitarian groups
around the world are trying to ban its use.
References
1 Apocalypse Now, 1979, 20th Century Fox
2 Fight Club, see InfoChem, May 2007
www.rsc.org/TheMole