Liquid Inconvenience
A 5-10 minute read
If the movies are to be believed, it’s really simple for anyone in the know to take a couple of everyday household beauty or cleaning products, mix them together in just the right quantities and under just the right conditions, and create a bottle of liquid powerful enough to rain biblical hellfire and destruction down on your enemies.
Or zombies.
And clearly this is true, because for many years we weren’t allowed to take any sensible quantities of liquids on to commercial flights, lest we use our hand cream and contact lens solution to seriously inconvenience our fellow passengers.
Obviously, or this would be a very short article, such an explosive totally exists. It is called Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) and although the name implies three lots of nail polish remover and three lots of hair colour remover, it is genuinely scary stuff. It was used in the London bombings of 2005, the 2015 Paris attacks, 2016 Brussels bombings, Manchester Arena bombing, 2017 Brussels attack, Parsons Green bombing, Surabaya bombing, and 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombing.
Terrorists love it because it can be made from readily available ingredients like hair dye, paint thinner, and drain cleaner. So there’s no need to deal with undercover agents to get the component parts, just a quick trip to Boots and Homebase and you’re good to go. Go boom that is. And it is very boom-boomy, with about three quarters the force of TNT, which is pretty forceful for something you can make in your own kitchen.
Terrorists also hate it, because it is extremely volatile, and prone to going boom when you don’t want it to. The 2017 Barcelona terror attacks were preceded by an explosion which turned out to be two terrorists, including the terror attack mastermind, turning themselves into a fine mist, along with a ton of gas canisters they intended to use in the attacks.
So look, I’m not ridiculing this stuff okay? It has killed a lot of people, injured hundreds, and left thousands more with PTSD. It has been given the nickname ‘Mother of Satan’, and you don’t get that sort of name just because you give people a mild rash. What I am ridiculing however, is airlines imposing limits on our carry-on bottle sizes just in case we wanted to make our very own Devil’s Momma whilst 30,000 feet above the Atlantic. Let’s see if that ridicule is in any way justified shall we? Let’s make a bomb together and see if we can spot any plot holes along the way.
One - Unless you import industrial chemicals for a living you’ll need to buy a shit ton of shop strength hydrogen peroxide. This might make some sales assistants suspicious. Nobody needs to be that blonde.
Two - Assuming the police haven’t come round for a chat, you can now turn this maiden’s water hydrogen peroxide into dragon’s piss hydrogen peroxide. You do this by boiling off the water so you are left with the good stuff. How much of it is water you ask? Nearly all of it I reply. The concentrated stuff constitutes about 5% of the stuff you bought, so you’ll likely die from boredom while watching your pots and pans boiling on the hob. You might also die from other causes, because the concentrated stuff you’re creating can be used as rocket fuel. You might want to increase your home insurance, particularly the bit concerned with fire, and things that go bang when left on the hob too long.
Three - Having stored your rocket propellant somewhere safe, you just need to buy some nail varnish remover and drain cleaner. This is your acetone and sulphuric acid, items two and three in the triumvirate they call ‘Mother of Satan’. If it helps to make things less suspicious when you pop these into your hand luggage, you can put the concentrated hydrogen peroxide you made earlier in the same container as the nail varnish remover. This is entirely safe. So long as you keep the container cool that is, so be sure to add some of those travel ice packs in there too.
Four - Along with your containers of highly flammable and extremely corrosive liquids, and the ice packs, you will need to pack a thermometer, an eye dropper, something to stir them with that won’t melt, and a large beaker. Just your normal carry-on stuff in other words. Absolutely nothing there that would get you escorted into an interview room for a chat with security and an intimate search. Oh, I nearly forgot, silly me. You’ll be needing a gas mask too, if you can’t hold your breath for hours on end that is.
Five - You will need to fly Business Class because you’ll be needing a large bucket of ice. Leave the bottle of champagne in your seat, you won’t be needing that yet. Take your extremely toxic bottles, along with all the rest of your kit, into one of the toilets so you don’t arouse any suspicion whatsoever as you do your sciency stuff. The nail varnish remover and rocket fuel combo goes into the beaker, and the beaker goes into the ice bucket. There won’t be nearly enough ice, but let’s play pretend for a moment. The eye dropper is used to add the sulphuric acid one drop at a time. No really, when I say one drop I really mean one drop. The thermometer is used to monitor the temperature, obviously. The mixture will want to get hot, like really really hot, but the ice is going to counteract that. If you let it get a bit hot you’ll end up with a very weak explosive, which would be embarrassing. If you let it get very hot you won’t need to worry how weak it ends up because you’ll be smeared around the inside of the toilet cubicle.
Six - You need to keep stirring as you add the sulphuric acid, and the ice will need replenishing constantly. Which is fine, because you can stir with one hand while you unlock the door with the other and beckon one of the cabin crew over to fetch you some more ice at regular intervals. Actually, that might be tricky because you will have died from the fumes by now. Please go back to item five and put on the gas mask I forgot about. Do it before you use the eye dropper. Also, politely ask the fumes to remain in the toilet cubicle when you ask for more ice, so nobody thinks your digestive system is rotting from the inside out.
Seven - Keep adding the sulphuric acid drop by drop, stirring constantly like it’s a bloody risotto or cheese sauce, while sending out for regular ice bucket refills … for four hours!
Eight - Assuming you haven’t been vapourised, that the smell hasn’t raised any suspicions, that nobody else has needed to use the toilet, and that the plane is carrying sufficient ice cubes for your little science experiment, you now have a beaker with some TATP in it. Congratulations! You can now return to your seat and drink your warm champagne while you wait for it to dry. This will take about two hours.
Nine - Six hours after you started your cookery class your big moment has finally arrived. You can now detonate your beaker of TATP, which I’m not about to tell you how to do because I don’t want to be arrested for writing a bomb making manual. Also, I don’t know. Apparently it’s quite easy to do though. If you did let the temperature get a bit too high earlier on you might just blow your own dick off (I’m assuming only men would be dumb enough to try any of this shit). But, if you made a perfect batch you’ll probably kill a handful of passengers around you, and maybe even blow a window out, forcing the pilot to descend to a level where people can breathe properly.
Of course, you won’t know whether it’s news headlines for a week or a lifetime of pissing into a bag until you set it off, which is, after all, the fun of doing your own science.