2nd attempt and nice clean little orange poof balls. First time I was I was impatient and used some cotton from a tee shirt instead of cotton balls
and only waited maybe an hour before rinsing , I guess I learned from failure. Expensive little poof balls using the typical YouTube method and
keeping it cool for a day but very interesting.
That same kind of "I got this" like when I got the Tesla coil to resonate using 1800s instructions back in the day.
Tesla coil in real life IMO is as impressive as energetic materials , I encourage you guys and girls to make one, the best video on YouTube is
nothing like seeing it in real life.
I took precautions doing the nitrocellulose cotton ball thing safety glasses and and water hose ready to go nearby but even though this is a beginner
experiment what mistakes can make thing go wrong and get people hurt ?
[Edited on 28-7-2017 by curiosity_cat]curiosity_cat - 27-7-2017 at 20:43
Also when I mixed the KNO3 stump stuff with the H2SO4 there was some clumps that did not dissolve into it, so I added some more H2SO4 and those clumps
remained so my guess is its not 100% KNO3.NeonPulse - 28-7-2017 at 00:12
Also when I mixed the KNO3 stump stuff with the H2SO4 there was some clumps that did not dissolve into it, so I added some more H2SO4 and those clumps
remained so my guess is its not 100% KNO3.
Or it did dissolve and made a thick paste of potassium sulfates. Adding more sulfuric will help the nitration mix by becoming more fluid. PHILOU Zrealone - 29-7-2017 at 00:26
Making use of NaNO3 or NH4NO3 and HNO3(69%) will help solubilize all mineral materials, improve mixing, reduce viscosity (what is high at low
temperature) and hence increase heat dissipation ==> lower risk of hot spots and runnaway.CRUSTY - 13-8-2017 at 13:07
I'm not sure what your post-nitration procedure is, but be careful when drying. It's autoignition temperature is only 170 °C, which is surprisingly
easy to get to when you leave it on a hot plate for an hour and do something else in the meantime. As some of you may know, I do a demonstration on
chemistry for a local elementary school every year, and I thought nitrocellulose would be fun to show, but I unfortunately did exactly what I
described above (this was in the lab however). I walked away for a moment to look something up, and saw the room turn orange as around 10 grams of
nitrocellulose (nitrated cotton by the way) flashed and burned completely, which moved a couple of ceiling tiles a bit. I lost it all, but hey, no
residue!
Also, neutralizing the cotton after nitration is a good idea, it greatly increases burn rate. If you don't have a pH probe, use sodium bicarbonate or
an indicator. Just be cautious, as I got some pretty strong NO2 evolution.
