Important: Safety Warning
This page contains instructions involving gunpowder or other explosive or pyrotechnic compositions. Preparing explosives as described has caused severe injuries and deaths, and is illegal in most places.
In addition, this page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Gun Cotton
pyroxylin. Trinitrocellulose, C&H (NO2) 30%, more probably a nitric ether of cellulose, C12H14 (ΟΝΟ2) 604, as by the action of reducing agents as hydric potassium sulphide, KHS, and iron and acetic acid, it is converted into cellulose. Boiled with ferrous sulphate and concentrated hydrochloric acid, it gives off all its nitrogen as N2O2. Gun cotton was discovered by Schönbein in 1845. It is prepared by drying cottonwool at 100 and then leaving it for 24 hours in a mixture of one volume of nitric acid, specific gravity 1.5, and three volumes of sulphuric acid, specific gravity 1.85, the mixture being cooled to 10°. It is then washed with water, and, if required pure, again with a mixture of one part alcohol and three parts ether to remove the lower nitrates. Gun cotton finely divided explodes between 160°- 170°. It keeps best if it is washed with soda. Compressed gun cotton burns like tinder, but is exploded by mercuric-fulminate. See EXPLOSIVES. TILLERY, MACHINE GUN, RIFLE, ETC.