Well....

SWIM accidentally spilled 200mL of NG dissolved in acetone onto his shed floor which is made of plywood. It instantly was absorbed and the acetone evaporated so quickly it "smoked" with vapors. Now there is a .5 meter by 1 meter area of floor has a dark stain where the NG is still soaked. He can't cut it out because the area crosses seams where it is nailed to planks underneath. Well, it would be very difficult to cut it out...

Anyway, what should he do? This floor is old and nasty and who knows what other chemicals are soaked in there. Would it be (relatively) safe to pryout the boards if he soaked the spot in acetone to desensitize???

Nitroglycerine is not explosive when poured out in the open air, it is simply flammable. Still better safe than sorry. You may want to look up topics related to explosives disposal and chemical destruction of explosives. This is a subject I have always ignored (destroy explosives? heresy!), but I always run accross references to it. Patents are probably the best place to look for that information.

Same thing happened to me last year:

http://roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=4104

Since it was spilled into antique furniture, prying boards out was not an option. There is no explosion hazard, as the NG will soak and soak until it has spread as far as it can, being even less sensitive than low-NG dynamite. You would have to take a piece of that wood out and use a sledge on an anvil to make it (possibly) go boom.

Just pour some acetone/sulphide/NaOH etc over it and scrubb most of the rest off. Only bad thing are the fumes if you live in that room, in a shed there is no problem!

BTW I simply let it evaporate during the summer, now the headaches have stopped when I get in there. Had to sleep in the living room for 8 month ... :mad:

Just soak the NG stain with lye (NaOH/water solution). The NaOH destroys/hydrolizes the NG. Very simple very effctive.

nitro destroyer;
1.5 quarts water
3.5 quarts denatured alcohol
1 quart acetone
1 pound of 60% sodium sulphide

Mix sodium sulphide with water before the rest. this does not keep well, so make just enough for the job at hand. Keep the chemicals on hand in batch sized kits for quick use when needed.

Thanks everyone. Now SWIM can sleep free of bad dreams of his neighbors frantically dialing 911 as they do a fuckin "Chineese fire drill" around the smoldering debris that used to be his shed.