The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

COLLOIDED NITROCELLULOSE POWDERS 297
work on smokeless powder and in 1895 patented a powder consisting
of a mixture of guncotton, collodion cotton, and potassium
nitrate, colloided with acetone, and in 1897 an improved powder
made from nitrocellulose alone colloided with ether-alcohol. The
nitrocellulose first used contained approximately 12.45% nitrogen,
but this was later replaced by pyrocellulose, 12.60% nitrogen.
The powder was made in multiperforated cylindrical grains, and
was substantially the same as was used by the United States in
the first World War. Patents covering various improvements in
the manufacture of pyrocellulose powder were taken out in the
names of Lieutenant Bernadou and Captain Converse, U. S.
Navy, and were licensed or sold to private interests, the United
States government retaining the right to manufacture under
these patents powder for its own use.
1900-1907. About 1900 the Navy Department built the Naval
Powder Factory at Indian Head, Maryland. The plant was
capable of producing several thousand pounds of smokeless powder
per day, and was enlarged during the course of a few years
to a capacity of about 10,000 pounds daily. About 1907 the Ordnance
Department, U. S. Army, built at Picatinny Arsenal,
Dover, New Jersey, a powder plant with a capacity of several
thousand pounds per day.
Classification of Colloided Nitrocellulose Powders
American pyrocellulose powder and French poudre B are
straight nitrocellulose or single-base powders. They are made by
the use of a volatile solvent, generally ether-alcohol, which
solvent is removed wholly or in large part during the process of
manufacture. They are the simplest of colloided powders, the
pyrocellulose powder being really the simpler of the two, for it is
made from one single kind of nitrocellulose. Modified forms of
these powders are made by incorporating into the colloid nonvolatile
solvents (i.e. solvents which remain in the finished powder)
which may be either explosive or non-explosive or by distributing
throughout the colloid as a separate phase materials,
either explosive or non-explosive, which affect the rate or the
temperature of the burning or the strength of the powder. Aromatic
nitro compounds, such as DNT, TNX oil, etc., dissolve
nitrocellulose or are dissolved by it, and thus constitute themselves
non-volatile solvents, but they are also explosives in their