• Question: is playdough explosive?

    Asked by wombatwacker2000 to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Peta on 23 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      I don’t think playdough is explosive. 🙂

      I think if you mix 100g of playdough with a kilogram of C4 plastic explosive then the result will be explosive. 😉

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      Nope. I can’t find any mention of playdough being explosive.
      I wouldn’t try and take it on a plane though, security would probably take it off you.

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      Not that I know of! I think it’s just made of salt dough, which is like a normal dough but with extra salt.

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      Oh! I answered this earlier, but it didn’t save my answer! Annoyance!

      Anyway, the thing that playdough is made from, cornflour (usually) is explosive, but not in the spontaneous way. If you have a very fine powder of anything that is flammable (like flour) and suspend it in air and ignite it, it will violently burn i.e. explode. An experiment you can get your teacher to try in school is the exploding custard tin – it makes a very loud explosion and smells really good!

      But back to the original question, no it isn’t explosive as playdough.

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