Editing Nitroglycerin (section)

== Detonation ==
When nitroglycerin explodes, the products after cooling are given by:
:4{{chem2|C3H5N3O9}} → 12{{CHEM2|CO2}} + 10{{CHEM2|H2O}} + 6{{CHEM2|N2}} + {{CHEM2|O2}}

The heat released can be calculated from the heats of formation. Using &minus;371&nbsp;kJ/[[Mole (unit)|mol]] for the heat of formation of condensed phase nitroglycerin<ref>{{Cite web |last=Informatics |first=NIST Office of Data and |title=Nitroglycerin |url=https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C55630&Units=SI&Mask=FFF |access-date=2024-02-20 |website=webbook.nist.gov |language=en}}</ref> gives 1414&nbsp;kJ/mol released if forming water vapor, and 1524 if forming liquid water.

The detonation velocity of nitroglycerin is 7820 meters per second, which is about 113% the speed of [[TNT]]. Accordingly, nitroglycerin is considered to be a high-[[brisance]] explosive, which is to say, it has excellent shattering ability. The heat liberated during detonation raises the temperature of the gaseous byproducts to about {{convert|5000|C|F|-3}}.<ref name="fn_1"/> With a standard enthalpy of explosive decomposition of &minus;1414&nbsp;kJ/[[Mole (unit)|mol]] and a molecular weight of 227.0865&nbsp;g/mol, nitroglycerin has a specific explosive energy density of 1.488&nbsp;[[Calorie|kilocalories]] per gram, or 6.23&nbsp;kJ/g, making nitroglycerin 49% more energetic on a mass basis than the standard definitional value assigned to TNT (precisely 1&nbsp;kcal/g).