The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

DISCOVERY OF FULMINATING COMPOUNDS 401
fire, for, as soon as this powder takes up a very little heat or
warmth, it kindles forthwith, and does remarkably great damage,
when it explodes with such vehemence and might that no man
would be able to restrain it." The author also reported that warm
distilled vinegar converted the powder into a material which was
no longer explosive. The name of aurum fulminans was given to
the explosive by Beguinus who described its preparation in his
Tyrocinium Chymicum, printed in 1608.
Fulminating gold precipitates when a solution of pure gold
chloride is treated with ammonia water. The method of preparation
described by Basil Valentine succeeds because the sal ammoniac
used for the preparation of the aqua regia supplies the
necessary ammonia. If gold is dissolved in an aqua regia prepared
from nitric acid and common salt, and if the solution is
then treated with potassium carbonate, the resulting precipitate
has no explosive properties. Fulminating gold loses its explosive
properties rapidly if it is allowed to stand in contact with sulfur.
Fulminating gold was early used both for war and for entertainment.
The Dutch inventor and chemist, Cornelis Drebbel,
being in the service of the British Navy, devoted considerable
time to the preparation of fulminating gold and used his material
as a detonator in petards and torpedoes in the English expedition
against La Rochellc in 1628. Pepys, in his diary for November
11, 1663, reports a conversation with a Dr. Allen concerning
aurum fulminans "of which a grain . . . put in a silver spoon
and fired, will give a blow like a musquett and strike a hole
through the silver spoon downward, without the least force upward."
Fulminating silver was prepared in 1788 by Berthollet who
precipitated a solution of nitrate of silver by means (if lime water,
dried the precipitated silver oxide, treated it with strong ammonia
water which converted it into a black powder, decanted the
liquid, and left the powder to dry in the open air. Fulminating
silver is more sensitive to shock and friction than fulminating
gold. It explodes when touched; it must not be enclosed in a
bottle or transferred from place to place, but must be left in the
vessel, or better upon the paper, where it was allowed to dry.
The black material which deposits in a reagent bottle of ammoniacal
silver nitrate, and sometimes collects on the rim and