The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

40 BLACK POWDER
produces a powder which bums more slowly or produces less
vigorous effects, and different formulas are used for the compounding
of powders for blasting and for other special purposes.
In this country blasting powder is generally made from sodium
nitrate.
John Bate early in the seventeenth century understood the
individual functions of the three components of black powder
FIGURE 18. Gunpowder Manufacture, Lon-ain, 1630. After the materials
had been intimately ground together in the mortar, the mixture was
moistened with water, or with a solution of camphor in brandy, or with
other material, and formed into grains by rubbing through a sieve.
when he wrote: "The Saltpeter is the Soule, the Sulphur the Life,
and the Coales the Body of it." 15 The saltpeter supplies the
oxygen for the combustion of the charcoal, but the sulfur is the
life, for this inflammable element catches the first fire, communicates
it throughout the mass, makes the powder quick, and gives
it vivacity.
Hard, compressed grains of black powder are not porous—the
sulfur appears to have colloidal properties and to fill completely
15 John Bate, "The Mysteries of Nature and Art," second edition, London,
1635, p. 95.