The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

294 SMOKELESS POWDER
to make it completely homogeneous. It was rolled into thin sheets
which were cut with a knife or scissors into the desired shape and
size. The use of nitrostarch instead of part of the nitrocellulose,
and the addition of pulverized chlorate or picrate in various proportions,
were also mentioned in the patent.
FIGURE 72. Paul Vieille (1854-1934). Inventor of poudre B, the fiist
progressive-burning smokeless powder, 1884. Author of classic researches
on erosion. Secretary and later, as successor to Berthelot, President of
the French Powder and Explosives Commission.
1889. Nobel soon discovered 6 that the use of soluble nitrocellulose
made it possible to manufacture ballistite without using
camphor or any other solvent. The nitroglycerin and soluble
nitrocellulose were brought together under water. As soon as the
nitroglycerin had been absorbed by the nitrocellulose, the mass
was heated to «0° to complete the gelatinization, and was then
rolled and cut up in the usual way. In an alternative process the
gelatinization was hastened by using more nitroglycerin than was
6 Brit. Pat. 9361 (1889).