Gun cotton now what??

[person]

Over the past few days i made about 200 g of nitrocellulose (in 50 g batches). It works great but now what ??

 

It was a lot of fun to make but now that i have it... Any fun suggestions or expiriences.

[insane_alien]

i hope your not storing it all in the one place/container.

 

also, for anybody casually browsing through:

 

WARNING: Gun cotton is dangerous and not to be handled or even thought about if you don't know the chemistry behind it and exactly what you are doing.

[person]

Yes sorry i shuold have said

 

" The manufacturing of nitrocellulose is Illegal in many countries and the process wear by it is made involves the use of more than one highly corrosive acid. The end product is a dangerous explosives(all of wich should be respected and handeled with care) and i would therefore not recommend for any one to atempt to manufacture nitrocellulose for fear of being sued... and besides you might even get hurt "

 

Sorry alien : )

 

P.s Yes, stored in plastic (non-static) zip bags far from each other.

[insane_alien]

good stuff. just to further emphasise the point, storing it all together would be a good way to have your wall suddenly develop a hole.

 

as for stuff to do with it, i find that burying a bit a few centimeters(5-15cm) below ground and lighting provides a good demonstration of how craters form. also good for collapsing mole tunnels.

[person]

Haha cant say i have a mole problem (other than working it out ) but i have always wanted a swimming pool

[insane_alien]

i think you'd need more than 200g for that. with 200g your not even in pond territory.

[hermanntrude]

i think you'd need more than 200g for that. with 200g your not even in pond territory.

 

that DOESNT mean "make lots more and see how big a hole you can make"

[frosch45]

I recently watched this video on youtube

 

 

cool stuff.

 

I do have sulfuric and nitric acids, actually quite a bit of nitric stored in a chemical acid glass bottle, but I only have a little bit of sulfuric left, and I really don't feel like buying another bottle for $50 for my small-scale purposes described below, and its no fun to just buy nitrocellulose from a theater supply store. So this is what I was thinking:

 

I do have a large amount of sodium bisulfate (yes bisulfate, not bisulfite). In water, I'm guessing that the sodium ions will completely fall off the HSO4- bisulfate ion. And although not all of the hydrogen ions will come off of the SO4-2, I think a good amount of them will when I dissolve the compound.

 

So my question is if I made a saturated solution of sodium bisulfate, got it very cold, and mixed it with very cold conc. nitric acid, would it make a solution suitable for nitration?

[foodchain]

i hope your not storing it all in the one place/container.

 

also, for anybody casually browsing through:

 

WARNING: Gun cotton is dangerous and not to be handled or even thought about if you don't know the chemistry behind it and exactly what you are doing.

 

Its cool that warnings are giving. Reactions can be very fast, in fact simply holding a lighter up to an empty bottle of everclear can create half foot flame easy at jet intensity(sounds really cool), then again that's probably why they put warnings on the bottle.

 

Most compounds used for explosives or anything like that can melt you, and not in a funny sense. Its all neat until you have to get your burn bandages changed:-(

[Lifeson]

We do a chemistry magic show at our school and light small wads of it for a packed auditorium full of students and parents (With safety precautions, ie. heat-resistant gloves and goggles). A fun thing to try would be to create a rope of the stuff and set it off. Should burn very quickly down the rope.

[Justonium]

I recently watched this video on youtube

 

 

cool stuff.

 

I do have sulfuric and nitric acids, actually quite a bit of nitric stored in a chemical acid glass bottle, but I only have a little bit of sulfuric left, and I really don't feel like buying another bottle for $50 for my small-scale purposes described below, and its no fun to just buy nitrocellulose from a theater supply store. So this is what I was thinking:

 

I do have a large amount of sodium bisulfate (yes bisulfate, not bisulfite). In water, I'm guessing that the sodium ions will completely fall off the HSO4- bisulfate ion. And although not all of the hydrogen ions will come off of the SO4-2, I think a good amount of them will when I dissolve the compound.

 

So my question is if I made a saturated solution of sodium bisulfate, got it very cold, and mixed it with very cold conc. nitric acid, would it make a solution suitable for nitration?

 

You'll need to dissolve the sodium bisulfate directly in ur concentrated nitric acid. The reaction won't work if your acids are dissociated.

[DeepSpace]

i think TATP is cheaper and stronger than nitrocellulose

[Fuzzwood]

Yeah, also more prone to develop holes in walls, the ground and your hand.

[frosch45]

yeah, but its a high explosive, and I'm really not interested in blowing anything up, including my hand.

 

i just wanted a little nitrocellulose to make that little fireball shooter and nothing else

[NightHawkIL]

I have written out a process for synthesizing NC using an acid salt method, in this case sulfuric acid/potassium nitrate. The yield is very high quality with a quick and clean burn. I developed it to avoid the need for conc. nitric acid, which both reduces cost and safety hazards.

 

There are other synths out there using acid salt processes, but I think I have developed the one so far to yield the best quality NC.

 

The synthesis as well as a video of the result can be found here:

http://www.grassrootsdiy.com/NC.htm

 

As you can see in the video, the quality is more than good enough to leave my hands totally unscathed - even with the excessive amounts I ignited in them. Obviously in your own case, don't attempt igniting anything in your hands without extensive testing of the product of each individual synthesis.