The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

TRANSFORMATIONS DURING AGING OF POWDER 311
deserve no further consideration. Ten per cent of diphenylamine
gives unstable smokeless powder. Powder containing 40% of
diphenylamine inflames spontaneously when heated in an open
vessel at 110° for an hour and a half. Diphenylamine attacks
nitrocellulose, but it does not attack it as rapidly as do the
products themselves of the decomposition of nitrocellulose in air;
and 1 or 2% of the substance, or even less, in smokeless powder
is as good a stabilizer as has yet been found.
Transformations of Diphenylamine During Aging of Powder
Desmaroux, 13 Marqueyrol and Muraour, 14 and Marqueyrol and
Loriette 15 have studied the diphenylamine derivatives which give
a dark color to old powder, and have concluded that they are
produced by impurities in the ether which is used in the manufacture
or by the oxidizing action of the air during drying and
storage. Their presence is not evidence that the powder has
decomposed, but indicates that a certain amount of the diphenylamine
has been consumed and that correspondingly less of it
remains available for use as a stabilizer.
The transformations of diphenylamine 16 in consequence of its
reaction with the products of the decomposition of nitrocellulose
are indicated by the following formulas. None of these substances
imparts any very deep color to the powder.
NO2
y
/ YNCNO)^ >
yn.-/ VNO2 NO,-/ VNH-/ \-NO2
N02
t
/
/ v •N02
Mem. poudres, 21, 238 (1924).
^Ibid., 21, 259, 272 (1924).
15 Ibid., 21, 277 (1924).
16 Davis and Ashdown, Ind. Eng. Chem., 17, 674 (1925).