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Henri Braconnot, a French chemist, discovered in 1832 that nitric acid, when combined with starch or wood fibres, would produce a lightweight combustible explosive material which he named Xyloïdine. A few years later in 1838 another French chemist, Theophile Jule Pelouze, treated paper and cardboard in the same way. He obtained a similar material he called Nitramidine. Both of these substances were highly unstable, and were not practical explosives.
However, Christian Friedrich SchönbeinChristian Friedrich Schonbein ( October 18, 1799 August 29, 1868) was a German- Swiss chemist who is most well-known for his discovery of guncotton. He also discovered ozone, a form of oxygen, in 1840 during the slow oxidation of white phosphorus and the, a German-Swiss chemist, discovered a more practical solution around 1846. He was working in the kitchen at his home in Basle when he spilled a bottle of concentrated nitric acid on the kitchen table. Immediately he reached for the nearest cloth, a cotton apron, and wiped it up. He hung the apron on the stove door to dry, and as soon as it dried there was a flash and the apron had exploded. His preparation method was the first to be widely imitated - one part of fine cottonCotton is a soft fibre that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant. The fibre is most often spun into thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. Cotton is a valuable crop because only about 10% of the raw weight is lost in processing. Once tr wool to be immersed in fifteen parts of an equal mix of sulphuric and nitric acids. After two minutes the cotton was removed and placed in cold water and washed to set the esterification level and remove all acid residue. It was then slowly dried at a temperature of less than 100 ° CThe degree Celsius (°C) is a unit of temperature named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius ( 1701 1744), who first proposed it in 1742. The Celsius temperature scale was designed so that the freezing point of water is 0 degrees, and the boiling po.
The process uses the nitric acid (2HNO3) to convert the cellulose (C6H10O5) into cellulose nitrate (C6H8(NO2)2O5) and water. The sulphuric acid is present to prevent the water produced in the reaction from diluting the concentrated nitric acid.
The power of guncotton meant that it was adopted for blasting. As a projectile force, it has around six times the gas generation of an equal volume of gunpowder and produces less smoke and less heating. However the sensitivity of the material during production led to the BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly, PrussiaThe word Prussia ( German: Preussen (Preussen Polish: Prusy Lithuanian: Prusai Latin: Borussia has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russians and French discontinuing manufacture within a year.
Further research indicated that the key was the very careful preparation of the cotton, unless it was very well cleaned and dried it was liable to spontaneously explode. The British, led by Abel, also developed a much lengthier manufacturing process, with the washing and drying times each extended to 48 hours and repeated eight times over. The acid mixture was also changed to two parts sulfuric acid to one part nitric acid.
Guncotton remained useful only for limited applications. For firearms, a more stable and slower burning mixture would be needed. Guncotton-like preparations were eventually prepared for this role, known at the time as smokeless powder.