nitrate

Potassium nitrate is fertilizer first, rocket fuel second, and only tangentially mentioned as an oxidizer for explosives.

Well, for one thing and a major enabler for the green revolution is nitrate fertilizers - which is a petroleum product.

Or, growing up, Dad put a lot of ammonium nitrate NH4NO3 fertilizer on the lawn.

Isn't nitrate run off from chemical fertilizer a big polution problem for rivers and lakes?

As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter.

Am I wrong, or are we just trying to keep farmers from having to buy ammonium nitrate?

As a side-note, I strongly suggest against using a cheap mandolin OR having a wound cauterised with silver nitrate.

So that's why my PC opened all those TCP connections when I typed in 'ammonium nitrate'.

The meat industry doesn't want you to know about sodium nitrate, etc.

Now dissolve some silver in nitric acid, which will oxidize the metal to soluble silver nitrate, and spread the solution over your prepared paper.

For a sneak attack, you'd probably be better off buying or stealing a tractor trailer and loading it to the gills with ammonium nitrate.

But decomposition produces not only CO2, but CO, CH4, nitrate chemistry...

Instead of adding Sodium Nitrate to their products they remain "all natural" and "organic" by adding celery juice, which is high in nitrates.

Hell, pretty much any bacon, sausage or cured products advertised as "Nitrate-free" or as "No Nitrated added" are relying on the fact that you think Nitrates are bad while still adding nitrates.

Try a headline "a mysterious explosion occured, no one got hurt" and me asking whether it was a gas explosion, a conventional explosive, or just some random kid who discovered that mixing potassium nitrate with sugar leads to fun things happening.

Nitrate preserved meat has links to cancer.