Chemgineer - 10-7-2024 at 04:41
I made an attempt to produce nitrocellulose as below:
25g potassium nitrate
I attempted to dissolve this in 45ml 80% sulfuric acid but this wasn't working so I increased to 75ml with additional acid. Still very difficult to
dissolve and I ended up with a white solution.
I then added 2 cotton balls and mixed them in the solution for around 2 hours before washing in water and then neutralising in sodium bicarbonate.
The resulting material was definitely damaged by the process but after thorough drying it did not ignite any faster than cotton.
I am wondering what I might be doing wrong, is it my poor dissolving of the KNO3?
[Edited on 10-7-2024 by Chemgineer]
fx-991ex - 10-7-2024 at 05:05
https://www.sciencemadness.org/smwiki/index.php/Synthesis_of...
Make sure its very dry else it really burn poorly if it burn at all.
Also, an extra wash with something like 3% urea if you have some on hand, will help stabilize it a bit. quite a bit of acid get left behind even after
H2O wash and soda neutralizing.
Also, cotton do not dissolve in acetone but nitrocellulose do, thats another way to find if it nitrated at all.
[Edited on 10-7-2024 by fx-991ex]