How powerful is TATP (acetone peroxide)?

Question

I have been reading and there seems to be a big deal with TATP. I understand that it can be used as an explosive but i do not see why it is a big problem. I mean how powerful is it? I ask this b/c i doubt that you can make a real powerful explosive with just those simple household materials. Is the media overreacting or is it really that powerful? How powerful is it?

Answer 1

It is a big deal since dogs can't detect TATP.  

As explosives go, it does not have an exceptionally high detonation velocity, but it is 80% or so of TNT:

there is a good table in wikipedia of this

A lot of the suicide bambs used against Israel are TATP-based, since they make it past the dogs.  

It is an oddity though, since the detonation derives its energy from changes in entropy, rather than enthalpy.  In other words, the detonation of TATP creates a lot of free entropy, rather than heat.  The expanding shock wave is driven by gas molecules wanting to get away from each other, rather than a pulse of heat:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/s...