2,750 tonnes… This number, which makes you dizzy, is the quantity of ammonium nitrate stored in the warehouse at the port of Beirut which exploded on Tuesday, causing dozens of deaths and unprecedented damage in the Lebanese capital , according to the Prime Minister of the country.
It is this same product that was singled out during the explosion of the AZF plant in Toulouse in 2001, or in a fertilizer plant in Texas in 2013.
Ammonium nitrate is a white, odorless salt used mainly as the basis of many nitrogenous fertilizers in the form of granules.
Ammonium nitrate is not a combustible product: it is an oxidizer, that is to say it allows the combustion of another substance already on fire.
We interviewed Vanessa de La Grange, engineer at the CNRS Chemical Risk Prevention Unit, about the circumstances of the explosion.
