User talk:JSdeutsch/Trinitrotoluene

Translator's notes by JS (talk)

• Did not find English counterparts to the following German params (the Gefahrensymbole template not only inserts links to hazard graphics but also generates its own reference footnote):

| Quelle GefStKz = == References ==

| Gefahrensymbole =

Explosions-
gefährlich
(E)

Giftig

(T)

Umwelt-
gefährlich
(N)

| MAK = Not rated, due to carcinogenicity in animal studies.

| WGK = 2

• Water solubility at 20 °C: 130 mg/L ← Solubilities here and in Chembox are inconsistent as taken from the German version (but then that's consistent with the inconsistency of the chemical literature ;).

• ... mass production began in Germany in 1901. ← This is inconsistent with the second paragraph (1891 v. 1901) as taken from the German original.

• ... the sulfuric acid protonates the nitric acid. ← Something appears to have been "lost in the original" here. I believe the German author intended to say that the sulfuric acid protonates and then dehydrates the nitric acid.

• Image:Initial nitro substitution on toluene.png ← In the German version, this 1st nitration step is referred to using the chemist's formal idea that it's a "second substitution", the 2nd nitration is the "third substitution", and so on. Since this usage is likely to confuse the nonchemist, it seemed better here to talk (and count) only in terms of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd nitro substitutions.

• Image:Nitro substitution on 2-nitrotoluene.png ← In this figure and the next, I've retained the references to yields in the third-column headings, but no numbers are actually provided in the original graphics. The values should be inserted if they can be located somewhere.

• Second-Substituent Yield (%) ← Col superhead added for clarity.

• ... the bold numbers represent ... ← German original refers to the "gray boxes", which I've changed to "bold numbers" because the colors and shading effects don't show up at all when I print B&W.

• Image:Nitro substitution on 4-nitrotoluene.png ← The third nitration is given short shrift in the German version. Apparently somebody conflated the nitration of 4-nitrotoluene and the nitration paths from DNT to TNT: this figure showing the nitration of 4-nitrotoluene to DNT (an example of second nitration, i.e. addition of a third substituent) is called "fourth substitution" in the original, and no figure illustrates any of the actual third-nitration ("fourth-substitution") paths. So I've repositioned this figure between the discussions of second and third substitutions.

• 1 kg TNT = 4.6 megajoule (4.6 · 10⁶ joule) ← The "=" is used rather loosely here. I've let it stand because the author apparently intends a formal parallelism between this "equation" and the one that follows.

• 1 kT (metric kiloton TNT) = 10¹² cal = 4.184 · 10¹² J ← The "4.184" (with period, not comma) that appears in the original would mean "4,184" in English. It should have read "4,184" in the German and may have been pasted there from an English document.

• Why does TNT explode? ← Promoted to top-level heading because it discusses TNT's chemistry rather than its application.

• The second footnote that appears in the German original was inserted by the Gefahrensymbole template, for which we ought to have an English equivalent.