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On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 14:18:59 -0400, wrote:

Since when has DoD cared about the cost of things they throw away?
If it really has TNT in it, it certainly has a ticking clock. (I still
bet it is a mix of RDX and ammonium nitrate)

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Here's the straight dope:

It’s made up of a cocktail of TNT, RDX, and aluminum, together with
some calcium chloride and a bit of paraffin wax for stability.

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The “mother of all bombs” that the United States Air Force dropped on
eastern Afghanistan on Thursday weighed 21,600 pounds. The vast bulk
of the bomb’s weight came from the sheer amount of explosive material
inside it, specifically 18,600 pounds of an explosive substance
enigmatically called Composition H6.

H6 is powerful stuff. Packing a punch 1.35 times the power of TNT, the
substance is commonly found in general-purpose bombs as well as in
underwater blast weapons like mines, depth charges, torpedoes, and
mine disposal charges. The U.S. Army has been using it since World War
II, but Thursday’s deployment of the mother of all bombs — technically
known as the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB — is
probably the first time so much of it has been detonated at once.

H6 is a less volatile version of an older substance called Torpex —
short for “torpedo explosive” — which is now obsolete. Torpex, an
alternative to pure TNT, was crazy explosive, and H6’s relative
storage stability, insensitivity to shock, and higher test
temperatures made it more practical for military use. It’s made up of
a cocktail of TNT, RDX (a chemical cousin of TNT that’s more
explosive), and aluminum, together with some calcium chloride and a
bit of paraffin wax for stability. Aluminum was added in order to
increase the “explosive pulse” of the blast — that is, give the
explosive gases more time to expand — thereby making it even more
destructive. The calcium chloride was thrown into the mix in order to
absorb moisture, which could lead to the production of unwanted
hydrogen gas in humid conditions.

The explosive was originally developed in the United States, but it
seems now that it is largely associated with Australian production. A
report from the country’s Aeronautical and Maritime Research
Laboratory noted some slight differences between American and
Australian H6, noting that the Aussies add an extra step to remove any
residual acid from the explosive cocktail.

Despite differences in the recipes made to use it, one thing is clear:
This stuff is powerful, and reliably so. The 18,600 pounds of H6
contained inside the MOAB detonated to create a one-mile blast radius
with the strength of 11 tons of TNT, likely flattening everything in
sight.

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https://www.inverse.com/article/30368-mother-of-all-bombs-moab-h6-composition-explosive