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Section 111 Failed Nitrocellulose

 Chapter 111 The failed nitrocellulose

Huh... finally completed something of milestone significance. Xiao Bailang flicked the newly made pottery jar, and the crisp clanging sound was louder than the bells of heaven. He had been living and eating in the kiln for more than ten days. The brothers in the industrial department shed tears - it was not easy. After many failures in tire making, drying in the shade, glazing, and firing temperature control, I finally succeeded. Next, I marinated seafood on a large scale, made soy sauce, and produced There are at least complete sets of light chemical products, and there is hope for future flush toilets.

"The days when I traveled across the country and couldn't make my own pottery jars and relied entirely on the people of the Ming Dynasty are gone forever!" Xiao Bailang made a sonorous and powerful voice beside the pottery jar and struck a pose. Unfortunately, Ding Ding was not there and was not photographed. into the lens.

Although the principle of a pottery jar is simple, this kind of pottery with a large diameter and a relatively thin body is the most difficult to make. The time traveler has made small-diameter ceramic pipes and jars in the past, but has no experience with such a large size. In the end, the industrial department checked countless information and will also All the pottery-making craftsmen in Lingao were recruited to complete the firing of the pottery jar. This was not an easy task. According to the potter who helped, there were only pottery kilns near Qiongshan County in Qiongzhou Prefecture. They were also surprised that such an ability could be produced on a trial basis.

The basic industrial pottery workshop has initially achieved production capacity. The brick and tile factory itself has all the conditions for making and firing kilns, and the temperature only needs to reach 800 degrees Celsius.

With such large and small pots, the chemical engineering team can finally start their great indigenous chemical engineering process. Among all the chemicals most urgently needed by time travellers, sulfuric acid and nitric acid are the most widely used, especially nitric acid, which is absolutely Most gunpowder and pyrotechnics are used in the manufacture of explosives, from the artifact nitrocellulose to the most dangerous ones.

To make nitric acid, you must have nitrates. Before there was a synthetic ammonia industry, nitric acid must have nitrates to make it. China's natural nitrate ores are distributed in Sichuan and the northwest, and there are none in the south. It relies on collecting nitrate soil to make nitrate. This It is a dirty and inefficient job. If the Guangzhou advance station had not transported a lot of saltpeter in time, the chemical industry department would have been reduced to digging pig pens for toilets.

We have enough saltpeter - it is all smuggled and exported from Guangdong, and the quality is very good. We also have a lot of black powder in hand, so all the saltpeter can be used to make nitric acid.

How to make nitric acid? Almost everyone among time travel enthusiasts has seen Mysterious Island and knows that nitric acid can be made with sulfuric acid. To have nitric acid, you must have sulfuric acid.

Ji Situi thought for a while, and found that modern industrial sulfuric acid production generally comes from three different sources. One is a by-product in the coal coking industry, the other is sulfur and saltpeter, and the third is pyrite. Each of the three methods has its own characteristics. There are pros and cons, and each has its own indigenous craft process, but for time travelers, it is currently unavailable - there are no raw materials. Fortunately, Guangzhou has purchased soap alum. Although the output of this craft is very small, fortunately the process is simple. Extremely, they can make it with the laboratory equipment they have on hand.

Using soap alum to extract green vitriol oil is the most traditional and simplest way to make sulfuric acid. Green vitriol oil was also used on a small scale by the ancients, mostly in the field of metal processing. In the late Ming Dynasty, thanks to the introduction of technology from Western missionaries, some people have already

Nitric acid and aqua regia were produced, but the people who produced them obviously did not realize the specific functions of these things. If given time, it might usher in a new era of Chinese chemistry. However, the slave-owning regime was eager to "establish a unified country"

This possibility was quickly ended.

The production efficiency of saponite dry distillation method is extremely low. The sulfuric acid produced is only about 10% of the raw material. It is better than nothing and is purely a temporary substitute. This distillation method is extremely polluting and somewhat dangerous. Chemical industry

The team chose a place in the Bobu Heavy Industrial Zone with a suitable wind direction to build a factory building. It started distillation using the retort method. All participants were issued chemical factory labor protection overalls and masks. After a few days, there were 20 kilograms of concentrated sulfuric acid.

With concentrated sulfuric acid, you can make nitric acid. Use the distillation method again, add saltpeter to the sulfuric acid, and then slowly heat it to use the volatility of nitric acid to get concentrated nitric acid. This process will generate a lot of heat, and it is made by Fengchenglun's cold storage

For the first time, ice cubes were put to a serious use - the ice-water mixture was used to mix the retort that condensed nitric acid.

With nitric acid, guncotton, a time-traveling artifact, was immediately mentioned. Not only does guncotton have greater explosive power than black powder, it is also a very good propellant.

After the test plan was approved, Li Di began to trial-produce smokeless gunpowder - guncotton for the army. Logically speaking, this was a matter for the chemical industry group, but the chemical industry group was skeptical about the ability to produce nitrocellulose. Li Di of the Navy suddenly stopped working on steam engines.

, volunteered to take over the task of making nitrocellulose - the condition was that after the nitrocellulose was put into mass production, it must be given priority to the navy.

First, we got a few clay jars and the acid and alkali needed for one production, and took away 15 kilograms of cotton. The caustic soda was in stock and had to be approved by the Planning Commission. Fortunately, gunpowder was a military matter, so the Planning Commission quickly approved it.

Because both caustic soda and nitric acid are corrosive, Li Di put on chemical gloves and apron borrowed from Ji Situi.

Gunpowder requires very pure absorbent cotton. Generally, gunpowder factories purchase ready-made products, and time travelers can only make them by hand.

The first step is to process the cotton, tear it open, and pick out visible impurities, such as small stones, dead leaves, etc. Wash the cotton with water until the effluent is clear. Put the cotton in a ceramic pot, add water until it is just submerged, and then pour it into the pot.

Add caustic soda equivalent to 2% to 5% of the weight of the water in the pot, cover and boil, then simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Cool, rinse with plenty of water, wash and rub for about 10 minutes. Clean the washed cotton.

Dry the paper in the sun outside. Then pour the remaining alkali water into the spent alkali bucket. Start to configure concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid into a mixed acid for esterification according to the ratio of *:*. Now, although Lingao is

In the dry season, the air humidity is still a bit high, the mixed acid has cooled down, and the cotton has not yet been dried. It seems that a dryer will be needed in the future. The military industry of the Eighth Route Army used fire kangs to dry, and this can be learned.

Li Di put more than half of the dried cotton into the mixed acid, pressed it, stirred it, closed the lid, and looked at the watch. After 10 minutes, he took it out, put it aside, and put in the remaining cotton.

, mix the two times together after finishing.

Put the waste acid into the waste acid bucket and continue the stabilization process. It took a full 6 hours, and finally the first batch of collodion was produced, but it was still wet, so I had to dry it in the shade and spread it as far as possible, otherwise it would be

Trouble.

It was not until night that we finally had 16 kilograms of dry collodion. Let's take it to the artillery team for testing! They are now almost a weapons research institute.

These days, there are explosions every day at Bopu's shooting range, and you can often see Lin Shenhe, who is covered in green smoke and his face is black, while Bai Yu and others stay by the river to catch their breath.

Li Di came to the shooting range with the newly made guncotton. He suddenly heard a loud noise and saw half of the barrel of a cannon flying in the air. He was frightened. After a while, he saw Lin Shen

He climbed out of the ditch covered in black, and nodded repeatedly to the people who came out from behind and said:

"The service life of our artillery barrels is better than imagined."

Li Di quickly ran over, handed the guncotton to him, and said: "This is my newly made guncotton. Please test it with the artillery team. Use it carefully. The power of this thing is not comparable to that of black gunpowder!!!"

But seeing Lin Shenhe's confused look, he asked: "Are you a strong cotton or a weak cotton?"

"Qiangmian?" Li Di looked confused.

"Holy shit, brother, you don't even know this and just make collodion?" Lin Shenhe was surprised, "Collodion with different nitrogen content has completely different properties."

"I think it's weak cotton." Although Bai Yu majored in weapons manufacturing, he also knew a little bit about pyrotechnics. "It's difficult to produce guncotton with high nitrogen content using local nitric acid and local esterification methods."

"Let's try it." Li Di felt a little unsure now.

Half an hour later, Lin Shenhe, with a dark face and a strong smell of gunpowder smoke, came to Li Di and said angrily: "The collodion you made can be used as paint or glue."

"I did exactly what the book said!" Li Di shouted, "Standard laboratory procedures."

"The problem is that this one can't detonate at all."

"Probably the nitrogen content is not enough." Bai Yu said.

"Another person who fell under Verne's poison."

Verne described the manufacturing process of collodion as very simple. In fact, it is not easy to make collodion in a simple environment. Especially in the esterification process, it is necessary to control the nitrating agent composition and reaction temperature quite accurately.

Reaction time and many other factors are used to control important indicators such as nitrogen content and viscosity.

How difficult is it? There are many brochures and books on the traditional gunpowder manufacturing method in the time traveler's technical database. Even the local manufacturing methods of * and Hesuojin are available, but there is no gunpowder. It can be seen that gunpowder is not

Something as easy to make.

In the industry, collodion is divided into several grades based on the nitrogen content: No. 1 strong cotton, No. 2 strong cotton, No. 3 weak cotton, explosive collodion, collodion, varnish cotton, celluloid cotton, etc., which are manufactured by local methods.

The nitrocellulose can reach the level of celluloid cotton at most.

"So much nitric acid and caustic soda were wasted." Li Di was very annoyed. Chemical products are already very stressful.

"It would be great if celluloid cotton could be used as propellant. Although it's a bit lame." Lin Shenhe thought for a moment, "Wu Yunduo said in his memoirs that when they reloaded bullets, one was black powder, and the other was to

Buy scrapped film and use celluloid as propellant."

"Want to try using propellant?"

"It can't be used this way. It needs to be processed into powder and then pressed firmly." Bai Yu shook his head, "Storage it first, and then put it into batches when we have the equipment. We'd better ask the chemical industry department to produce mercury fulminate as soon as possible. Those rifles don't have mercury fulminate."

Easy to handle."


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