Most pipebombs, as far as I know, use a steel pipe for confinement and shrapnel. As I was driving home tonight, i thought a bit about the use of other materials to increase the damage done by such a device. Searching the archive, i was unable to find any contributions on the subject of beryllium casings. Given it's toxicity when oxidized, I think there's an untapped potential here.

Perhaps the pipe could be Be? Even if beryllium pipe couldn't be obtained, the bomb could be jacketed with scraps of beryllium. I have a friend that works in a machine shop, polishing metal parts, including beryllium (of course, he wears protective gear). I can't imagine scraps would be that hard to come by. Would either be sufficient in detonation to be toxic?

EDIT: Typo

It would be effective.. but isnt the goal of a pipebomb to kill then and there? I dont imagine it will be worthwhile to you if you set it off.. and dont manage to kill anyone.. yet everyone get a bit of the shrapnel.. Then your ass gets dragged of to prison, where Bubba will make you wish you rammed the damn pipebomb up your ass first and then set it off... Also.. Im not quite sure how toxic Be is..

Good idea if you just want to poision someone.. but then again.. simple puting the Be in a place they come in contact with frequently should be enough... The pipebomb is meant to kill... not posion. If you want to make it a win-win situation.. I would try a more potent toxin, and just coat that on the casing of the pipe.

Also.. this is early in the morning.... so if this is incoherent, Im sorry....

Whilst on the RAAF base for cadets we were visiting the place where they hold spare parts for almost everyhting. Nusts, bolts (bolts for guns), F-111 engine parts you name it they had it. Anyway one bright spark stuck his hand up and asked whats the mopst dangerous thing you guys have here. The FLGOFF replied "The beryllium in the F-111's, we have to have full body suits when we handle it. If you come in contact with it you will be in a world of hurt"

Maybe he was just trying to scare use but if what he said was true, beryllium in pipe bombs would be something to be afraid of. So IMO beryllium would be a good choice.

It is very toxic but I don't think it is going to kill anyone in a hurry.
Also it may be a bit light to go far with any energy (speed) to do any damage.
Maybe Beryllium oxide powder mixed with your explosives will do the job better, toxic dust everywere long clean up etc.

The toxicity of Be seems to come from the risks of inhalation of small particles that affects lungs.

Some symptoms of Be toxicity are persistent coughing, shortness of breath with physical exertion, fatigue, chest and joint pain, blood in the sputum (saliva), rapid heart rate, loss of appetite, fever and night sweats.

The Be you use would be therefore way more effective if grinded/ball milled, before you use it in a pipebomb.

Some sources to get Beyllium are:
springs, swithes, relays, connectors in automobiles, computers, radar and telecommunication equipment, (...) golf clubs and bicycle frames, dental bridges and related applications.

I guess you would need to extract the Be from alliages, which is not the best thing. But this shows that only the pure compoud is toxic (dental bridges :))

Blindreeper: Unless I am completely mistaken, it's the oxide that's toxic. It's not too dangerous to handle a piece of beryllium, unless it's in powder form. That also makes it pretty tough to machine.

Arthis: I would NOT want to ball mill or grind beryllium. At the machine shop, they soak it in kerosene to keep the dust down as they polish. I can't imagine that would be possible in a basement shop with a grinding wheel.

Chemwarrior: Sure, the pipebomb is meant to kill. The beryllium is there in the same way a bit of cesium would be. As a weapon of terror. Perhaps it wouldn't really poison anyone, but it costs a lot of money to clean up, and it would scare people.

Ah well, there's I nothing i'd want to pipebomb, and there's no way in hell i'm experimenting with Be anytime soon.

Beryllium is toxic by inhalation, and only if it's in a water-soluble form, like the oxide, so that's what you'd want to use. Using Be as a casing material would be pointless because only a very miniscule amount of it would be oxidized by the explosion into a suitable size for inhalation.

It has a high heat of combustion, and was considered as a possible fuel in use with thermobarics, but dismissed because the toxic BeO smoke may have contravened the Hague and Geneva prohibitions against toxic weapons. A terrorist would be under no such restriction, so if they whipped up a berylllium based thermobaric fuel and used it in a crowded building (thinking night-club), than anyone not immediately killed by the flame/overpressure/paniced stampede would likely be exposed to the toxic BeO smoke, which would then effect a slow kill on the survivors and the rescue workers.

Speaking of which, I heard on NPR last week that more than half of the 9/11 rescue workers have developed respiratory problems, ranging from shortness of breath upon exertion, to full blown emphysema that requires oxygen, because of all the particulates and burning plastics.

So there's more than 2,000 dead from 9/11, it's just going to take some time for the body count to start creeping up, till there may be more dead from amoung the rescuers than there were victims in the buildings. :D

Have you got any idea how expensive Beryllium compounds are?
Furthermore Beryllium metal is probably being watched as it has it's main use in nuclear reactors/weapons as a neutron reflector.

Could'nt you just use the white tin allotrope if Tin, my chem teacher said that the white metal allotrope formed at cold temperatures (think fridge) and it was toxic. It would be cheaper than Be, but you would have to chill your pipe bombs before use:D

Umm... one little problem with that idea... when you detonate the pipebomb, your going to create a large ammount of heat that is going to cause the whole idea to go down the drain....

yeah I thought about that :P
Anyway, tin is a really, really inefficient toxin, there are soo many other things that kill you why bother with some cold metal.

If your heart was set on a poisonous pipebomb you could fill it will dry ice. Rapidly heat that, it expands, blows the pipe apart but without destroying the poison. The dry ice could also help to form the poison in the first place.

I was thinking about coating the outer surface of the pipe with KCN(melting point 635 centigrade).Just melt the KCN and coat the outer surface of the pipe with molten meterial.Or one can stick two three layers of paper over the outer surface of the pipe and than dip it in saturated soln. of KCN and let it dry.After that(in both the cases) cover the pipe with paper so thet it can be handeled with less risk(where there is cyanide,there IS risk anyway:eek: ).
As for making KCN it's in the forum already but somewhere I read that even heating K4Fe(CN)6 over 800 centigrade will give a mixture of KCN and (FeO?) if you heat it in a closed container with a small hole on the top(so that air doesnt oxidise the KCN).Otherwise heating with K2CO3 is always a mathod.
It think this will make an exellent pipe bomb.Wounded=dead;) .Though this all is just a theory but I think KCN CAN sustain the heat of explosion(M.P.=635 and that too on the outer surfase of the pipe).I'm not going to try this;)

And the purpose of coating the outside of a pipebomb with KCN would be? Sure, if shrapnel is thrown into a living organism and there is still KCN on the fragments they will possibly be poisoned in addition to getting a nice wound. I'd imagine a good bit of the KCN would be vaporised by the heat of explosion. Unless they were right on top of it, that probably wouldn't have much effect. I'd say by 25 feet, lets say 5 grams of vaporised/particulated KCN would be diluted enough by air to not be fatally poisonous anymore. If they were right on top of it, the shrapnel from any good pipebomb should produce a fatal wound.

Melting it onto the surface is the only viable way. The paper thing stands no chance. Ever seen a firecracker or m-80? The paper will be destroyed, and paper does not fly very far. Nor does paper have much penetrating force. If you want a poisonous casing why not just use lead sprayed with some nitric inside and out for soluble lead compounds? Unless you can find someway to deliver a poison in either large amounts or with a very small nececary dose, this general method will not be effective. Why not use the pipe bomb to deliver a toxic substance into the air. This would be much more effective, and would cause mass panic if the news that 2 kilos of anthrax has just been realeased airborn is on the 6 o'clock news.

This is what I meant.Glue the papers to the sufase of the pipe not WRAP.the papers will be cyanide saturate Before or after the glue.So when after the blast the pipe will be fragmented the papers will be the part of the fregments still sticking to the pipe.For this I'll do the experiment on this weekend anyway(wheather the papers will be sticking to the fragmented pipe or not though I think it's a bit obvious that they will since during the explosion there is no force that tries to seperate them from the surface of the pipe).
As for evaperation of cyanide the boiling point of KCN is fairly high.to prevent particulation one can tape the outer suface with holes in the tape.And you presumed about the use of the pipe bomb.It may be intended to kill ONE specific target and you want smallest size of bomb for this purpose that can be easily made as well.


.................. .| |||......................| O O O |..........
Pipe surface. >| |||<.Papers layer...| O O O |..........
.................. .| |||......................| O O O |<..Tape
.................. .| |||......................| O O O |..........
.................. .| |||......................| O O O |..........
EDIT:it took literally 8 trials to get it correct.I don't know in the editing widow it showed perfact and when I post it,it gets muddled.Oh. and the holes in tape for the poison to quickly come in contact with biofluids of the victim.Otherwise complete covering will hamper contact and meanwhile if the sharpnel is removed from the body it will be not effactive.

I remember reading that a guerilla group (possibly farc) use scraps of poisonous substance on the outside of their improvised grenades. The point of a grenade or a pipebomb in a battle circumstance is more to maim people than to kill. A maimed soldier is much more damaging to the unit. 1 guy out of action in pain, 2 other guys to carry the stretcher. If each bit of shrapnel is poisonous then it slows down even more of the unit. That was not especially relevant.