someone else with chemistry knowledge points out errors.
BBC – h2g2 – A Forum Conversation
to be fair the reaction of hypochlorites to liberate free chlorine is well known – its how bleach works!
I don’t think its a viable or practical method of producing illicit explosives for criminal or terrorist purposes (or that page would have been taken down a decade ago – even before 9/11 there was a spate of bombs in the UK from the extreme right and criminal gangs were starting to use them!) – other liquid explosive methods use peroxides as the precursor rather than hypochlorites.
I vaguely remember reading about mixtures of bleach and acidic chemicals being deliberately mixed in toilets to disrupt contentious political meetings in the 1970s or 1980s by getting the building evacuated, and similar stunts being tried in schools for the same reason. Even then it was a very rare occurence.
