Guar gum Ganganagar and Hanumangarh in Rajasthan are the major Guar trading markets. The United States has produced 4,600 to 14,000 tonnes of guar over the last 5 years. Texas acreage since 1999 has fluctuated from about 7,000 to 50,000 acres. The world production for guar gum and its derivatives is about 1.0 Million tonnes. Non-food guar gum accounts for about 40% of the total demand. Mainly it is used as a proppant transport / proppant suspending agent in hydraulic fracturing. At its peak the price was $8000 per ton. Chemically, guar gum is an exo-polysaccharide composed of the sugars galactose and
Water gel explosive alcohol, guar gum, dextran gums, and urea-formaldehyde resins are the typical gelling agents. Guar, specifically, is a gelling agent used for the aqueous portion of the water gel explosives. The primary component of water gels is monomethylamine nitrate. Monomethylamine nitrate is made from monomethyl amine (MMA) and nitric acid. Water gel explosives are also made of ammonium nitrate, calcium nitrate, aluminum, ethylene glycol and TNT. The proportions of these components vary depending on the desired explosiveness of the water gel. Water gel explosives are produced by combining nitroparaffins, usually nitromethane, with an aqueous salt solution and a gelling agent. These