schel sullivan so I'm working on a another batch of this,but before I went to bed I put it in a killer with some dry ice,when I woke up it was frozen, will that ruin it, or just kinda put the reaction on pause?
Almost everyone is on a list for something. If you voted Republican, you're on a list. Why? Because you're potentially standing in the way of people who want power over everyone.
@@SirCumferencelel yup, President Trump may have put a lot of good positive spin, humor in his statements but he never LIED. When he said "they're coming for you and I in their way" he was spot on as usual. That election was stolen, revealing the depth of corruption across the board in government. 911 was a fraud like the covid fear mongering is.Give me a break, if our immune systems weren't stopping the virus we would all be dead. guns will be next.
Why 24 hours.. seems last time I made this I made large quantity.. but only left it in few hours.. def not overnight.. but maybe yours is more potent..
Right on!,,anyone that doesn't have experience working with chemicals should do lots of research before playing with chemistry,, this is the best advice I can give as a chemist,,,always safety first!!!
I was actually impressed with your recipe. In fact, if you watch the "How its made" episode ( the bbc how its made), They had a scientist make this but out of pure Acids no store bought stuff, but there were TONS of carbon ashes left behind. Yours was SOOOOO much cleaner. And I will admit, I was seriously doubting it was going to be so cool...I was wrong... So like I said I was impressed with your recipe. Good Job Bud!
You see, thats strange because if they are using pure or lab grade reagents, then the product should turn out better. Im guessing what happened is they were using dilute chemicals so the cotton wasnt properly dehydrated, and that led to incomplete nitration.
@@Ajokeiguess well, if the episode they are talking about aired in the uk, its plausible they intended for a weak reaction to not excite the viewers. England especially as well as germany, but much of europe has very strict regulations on many chemicals that we in the us can get relatively easily, like you cant get either nitric acid or hydrogen peroxide above above a certain concentration, but here in the us we have very few restrictions legally speaking. Restrictions are mainly at the discretion of the suppliers so that they cant be held liable if you blow your face off after watching a youtube video, despite many of us trying our hardest, lol.
Excellent video. I as an ex - fireworks worker at a local factory, once i tried it using pure nitric & sulphuric acids, the ammount of each varied slightly - more nitric than sulfuric acid, and a small ammount of pure clinical cotton. i left the cotton soaking in the mixture for a couple of days, while it was fuming. Then after 3 days the cotton started to desintegrate. I filtered the powdery stuff, left it to dry, and tried to light it up, but nothing burnt. Obviously, i had no chemistry background, to which i was so interested in at school, but unfortunately they altered the subject to another, leaving me with a great lack of chemical knowledge. Anyway, it was a great and very interesting video, and at last i have learned how to produce it effectively. Thanks.
@@schelsullivan Thanks for your reply Schel. Yes indeed, and actually many explosive factories producing T. N. T. Nitroglycerine and other powerful explosives , usually use concentrated form of acids only, and many precaution procedures are taken, so as not to run off, and cause a serious accident. These trades are very nice, and interesting, but are the most deadly in the whole wide world -- very unfortunate to be so. They need a lot of chemical knowledge and that should be started when i was at school to which i was denied. I was more interested to explode a shell, made by me as a teen, rather than studying for exams !! That was my only dream as a youth !! Thanks and keep safe.
I remember doing this with red fuming nitric acid and relatively pure sulphuric acid, and it was very easy to overdo it. It would almost instantly start fuming like crazy and disintegrate if the temperature warmed up even a bit too much. I had no idea such good results could come from just using Potassium Nitrate directly though.
@@simonphoenix3789 it is good to have the ice bath circulate from a much larger insulated reservoir filled with ice and water. Keeping the reaction cool slows it down and controls it much better. It is also good to have the rubber apron and gloves made for messing with batteries and it does not hurt to make a box with plexiglass front and a way to slide the front up and down to access the space in bulk. Then have two spots you can open so you can reach in and do the mixing and such. I used three cans of the larger type found mostly in computers and such. I put one on the bottom back corner of the two sides pulling air into the backyard vent hood and one fan I put in the back panel in the middle along the top edge. I set it to pull air out this venting the hood. One of those in-line fans with ductwork would be great especially the ones that have a place to put a filter in-line. The idea is to make the hood have lower pressure inside so any leaks in the hood will suck air in and have one controlled exhaust point so you can direct the fumes out if the hood in the safest direction. If you want to get real fancy you can hook the hood up with taps for water, electric, etc. I got spoiled with having access and free reign to a labatory with super nice fume hoods with all the bells and whistles. It even had a second thicker front panel that could be pulled down in case something might explode. I never wanted to find out the range of usefulness of that secondary thicker pane cause something that would blow thru the first pane but not a second stronger pane might be only a difference of grams.
@@schelsullivan hi there my husband is been trying to make his own gun cotton very highly powerful but he is been having trouble getting it right like the one cotton ball with no ash left be hind can you please contact him to tell him how to make it very highly powerful and make it just right please call him 5744012465
+BlackMagicProd I've since discovered how nitric acid will react violently with nitrile gloves. Good catch! Luckily I'm using a nitrate salt. But nitric acid is produced in the reaction so no nitrile gloves from now on.
Well, i've been using neoprene gloves when working with conc. sulfuric acid or fumming nitric acid. Eventually the gloves will wear out, or damage, but it will take some time to reach that point.
American hardware stores: Sells sulfuric acid and KNO3. European hardware stores: I'm sorry sir, I'm going to need some ID before you buy that pack of tennis balls.
@Science Fusion Sulfuric acid and nitric acids are also easy to get in India ive bought both in the highest concentration and highest quality from a lan supplier..that too at a reasonable rate..just need to show id..and the gun cotton was super awesome and the best thing i ever made.
TNT: Trinitrotoluene, Explosive. BHT: Butylated Hydroxytoluene, Preservative used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, jet fuels, rubber, petroleum products, electrical transformer oil, embalming fluid. and FOOD that we and our pets eat.
+Rynku Viceroy I haven't. I work in a hardware store and this video was about the "hardware store" method. Chemistry grade acids will work much quicker than my method.
Lol. I kinda hope they don't spend time on running people through the mud over stuff like this. I'm sure someone with ill intent would find a more readily available option.
Back when I was about 10 years old I found the recipe for Blasting powder and proudly told my Grandfather. He in turn explained how deadly it was to play with explosive recipes and how many people got hurt buy it. I filed it away as non essential knowledge to use if desperate. I like the reminders on safety and also the reminders on what is legal in different places.
@Astropathix XIII You're a rude ass. Did it make you feel better replying like that to their comment? Sad life you must live, having nothing better to do than put down someone who wasn't born with a cell phone in their hand. You probably think you're better, but in all reality you have spent so much time with technology because your parents did not care enough to show you attention, and needed you distracted so as to not bother them.
A few fun facts: gun cotton was the explosive that ran WW1. They found that gun cotton is unstable as prepared with industrial grade chemicals, this was overcome with rinsing with ultra pure water - just about any impurity makes guncotton unstable. For those wondering, what's happening is the sulfuric drain cleaner is reacting with the potassium nitrate to form nitric acid, amongst many other compounds. The cotton, immersed in the nitric acid, takes up the nitrous (I think it's nitrous radicals but am not sure about that part) takes up the nitrous compound onto it's molecule. When it burns, it's just like any other nitrated compound, the O3 in the nitrous compound (nitrogen is the carrier atom, so to speak) breaks off due to the heat of the reaction and recombines with the carbon of the cotton to burn really fast and with a lot of additional heat. Unless you're sure of what you're doing, dont try combining other carboniferous compounds like this - you'll likely end up with something really unstable causing very unpleasant results. What he's showing you would be fun to try once, but go buy some commercial gunpowder for your activities. A derivative of this process using a commercial form of cellulose creates nitrocellulouse which many smokeless powders are made of. It's safer (stable) and cheaper to use. By the way, be careful where you dump the residual water from this operation, even if you neutralize it. What this guy passed over is that there likely are other compounds in the original materials which may be reacting with the nitric acid which are thrown out in the bath water, so to speak. While they're diluted down a lot, if you dump them somewhere outside, be sure to sprinkle it over a wide area, particularly if you do this more than once. Now here is another fun fact that you absolutely should not try - just know about it. Iodide crystals immersed in nitric acid create Nitrogen tri-Iodide. When dried out on filter paper Nitrogen Tri-Iodide is so unstable that a fly walking across it has been know to set it off, and it's a real explosive. Dont play with it, but realize that things put in nitric acid can be very very dangerous and unstable and unsafe. God gave you a brain, be curious, but use it. Nitric acid is some dangerous material. I once told a friend that I'd rather have a pallet of TNT lying around my yard than have a barrel of HNo3 around.
the main problem isnt the water. its the fad acids on the cutton. They washed cutton in pottash or soda solution to remove all fad. If the cutton isnt clean enough it does auto ignite over time. washing it with urea solution after nitration would be also good the urea decompuse free NOx makes it instabile too.
I have a question. I have pure cellulose powder. Can I make nitrocellulose/ gun cotton with it? Will it be a better product? Since it is directly cellulose powder? What about the stability?
Ans spinning wheel to make it into a string... then slow motion camera record it to find out the burn rate. Would look amazing if its say 20meters long.
Really cool share. I thought it was impossible to get nitric acid and your video and a quick search proves it can be made. Safety is extremely important here good on you stressing that. Peace, thanks for teaching us something.
Its a major ingredient in modern smokeless powders for one. For me its really about how much fun it is to play with. I love burning in my hand, its like a science explosion that you can hold. Ehem, not that I recommend you try any of this at home!
Place the cotton on a rubber lined table and take a plastic rolling pin and roll out the cotton fibers until there is no more water left, then repeat. Actually you could use rolls of cotton which makes what I just said much easier, just unrool the cotton and squeeze the heck out of it. Then take card files and separate your cotton until all you have left is this really puffy ball of cotton fiber, then process it for whatever you want to use it for. I use it for a kick in my rifle primers, let me tell you. It REALLY works. So thanks for the idea.
Before 9/11 we use to get dynamite to shoot rock holes for poles. We had a case of sticks leaking nitro. So we decided to take it up a holler and set it off. Little did we know we put it right on top of a 8" natural gas line. When we went back there was a crater blowed out with the gas line running right thru the middle. How the line didn't rupture was a miracle. This video brought back that memory.
@@schelsullivan That is a master level mentality. Only those new to something believe they know everything. Only those who've been at something for a while believe they know enough. Only a master knows enough to know what they don't know.
You can get sodium nitrate in the plant care section in 5 pound bags. Much more nitrate than the potassium nitrate. If you plan to use calcium nitrate, do the measurements on what would end up as CaSO4 and pour the free nitric acid into a bowl or beaker then add your sulfuric acid to that. One very cool use is to treat cofee filters. The nitrocellulose us extremely good for filtering stuff out of very acidic solutions such as filtering rhodium out of platinum chloride solutions or garbage out of gold chloride solutions. ❤
My friend, do or don't do but don't try! Try is when you don't know what you are doing and get yourself plus maybe someone else hurt or worse. I'm 71 now with no bad accidents and I have been doing this and home made "soup" since I was 14. Be careful but more so be sure!
thanks for the video. Jules Verne mentioned this and described the process in "from the earth to the moon" and I was curious what it actually looked like.
They did, the primary reason was its ability to be wet. Note this book was written circa 1865. The author Jules Verne chose between Florida and Texas for the launch site. And the gun club decided to use gun cotton to propel the craft to the moon.
Jules Verne was quite enthusiastic about guncotton (and rightly so). The process for making it (and also nitroglycerine) as well as its use and comparison to gunpowder is described in pretty fine detail in one of his other books, The Mysterious Island
Interesting alternative for NC powder would be Schultze powder. It was made from thin wood boards. He stamped the grains out of it with hole punches. Than washed it with soda solution and bleached it. After that he used nitric/sulfuric acid mix neutralized it with soda and soaked it later in Bariumnitrate or Potassiumnitrate solution. It was famos for Shotguns but to aggresive for rifles. Later he used Ethylacetat to wash and seal it and the burning speed got lowerd. I think it would usable in handguns where you need burning speed.
Chemical resistant gloves can be bought for $20 or under. Long sleeves or a bib plus safety glasses and or a face shield would be a must if I gave this a try.
You're wearing the wrong type of gloves here. Be sure you take them off before testing your gun cotton or else your gloves just might go: "BANG" too! .
Good quality video. Excellent results for gun cotton. Do you reload any ammunition with your nitro-cellulose ? And, if you do, how do you measure each load ? Henry
Chemistry is based on stoichiometry. Therefore, sodium bicarbonate can be used to neutralize the acid, after the nitration is completed, in only minor excess. Therefore, you don’t need to excessively wash and wash, as you mentioned in this video to remove sodium bicarbonate. Acid and base react to form salt and water. The salt is easily soluble in the water. This will be a safer end product, with all acid neutralized. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to watch this neutralization occurring via foaming. When the foaming stops, end the addition of sodium bicarbonate. Other ways may be mathematically, or by monitoring PH of solution.
Have you ever left it to "soak" longer than 24 hours? And did it make a difference? Thanks for all of your videos, or at least the one's I've seen so far. Keep it up. Love what is see. Very entertaining
Cool, thank you! That was quite intriguing. It always blows my mind to find that something is actually so simple but still requires artful attention. Wish i could just make my own smokeless powder, lol. Not about to ruin any barrels with experiments, tho. This would be cool for like a magic washcloth trick or something (no pranks, someone had the idea somewhere in time. I could hear it from here. Think it through before you freaking do.)
Some of the original gun cotton factories would just take them out of the Acid Bath and press them into bricks without worrying about the acid they would have very high temperature ceramic molds and press all the fluid out and compress the cotton when it's compressed it allows it to burn all at once creating a very nice explosion because it was intended to be used for mining and was until the invention of dynamite
Wrote a comment not long ago saying I was going to try making guncotton. I did and WOW it worked the first time. This stuff is so much fun. I have another batch working. Hopefully it will work as good or better. Keep the great experiments coming. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Later.
In an Old Book i ve read they used an mix of 2 parts pottasiumnitrate und 3 parts Sulfuric acid bei wight.They put the acid over the nitrate. If you nitrate over 40 C you only get Kollodium that can be used as gun powder too but is weaker. For high nitration you need to be under 30 C. With Concentrated nitric acid an sulfuric acid it took only 2hours than the acid starts to decompuse the guncutton slowly.
@@brandysigmon9066 Thanks for fast reply.I have 60% nitric and 98% pure sulfuric.I had problem,temperature was arround 20-25c but cotton goes jelly.I wash that slury stuff after 2-3h and it burn like regular cotton.No nitratio at all.Maybe nitric not so stron,actually i mix acids and add cotton in 10sec.Maybe i need to wait some time than add cotton,like you says at comment.Idk.My acid easy disolve copper and lead..but maybe it too weak for cotton nitration.Give me some advice.Btw my ice bath was extra loaded with ice and ammonium nitrate so it keep low temp for long time.
Accipiter Nisus When the cotton turns to "mush" it usually means the temperature has been too high. When you first mix your acids it causes an exothermic reaction meaning it gets hot. Mix your acids slowly and let the temp of the acids come down before adding your cotton. That should fix your problem
He's making nitric acid by combining sulfuric acid and potassium nitrate. Easier to start of with fuming nitric acid to begin with. But that defeats the purpose of the hardware store components video.
Appears to me that it would be great for reloading primers. I would think a small base of red phosphorus and this gun cotton under the anvil would work great.
Just remember that graphite is not the only thing used to regulate the burning rates of the various commercial powders!!! I *STRONGLY* advise that you *DO NOT* attempt to load any ammo with homemade nittocellulose!
OK, that was the problem - the baking soda bath afterwards - I've seen other folks do this and while they usually get a complete burn, it's slower but they always washed the cotton with baking soda
That's pretty much what is going on here. Its been a few years since chemistry class, but those 2 ingredients make Nitric acid. It's amazing all the different stuff that you can do with Nitric acid 😂
Awesome ! But, my greatest concern is the burn rate, once encapsulated in a cartridge. That being if it is too slow for pistol rounds, or too fast for rifle rounds. Or vice-versa.
is that the water that has been used to create that cotton, or rather that is left inside that cotton after the waterheavy phase in cotton production is over?
If you are unsure if your spoon is stainless, dip it in. You'll know pretty quick. 🤣 By the way kids, if you want to make most nitrate salts, you need to distill the nitric acid after making it with the drain opener and stump remover. Gun cotton is easy. RDX is not. You need more pure nitric acid for that.
With all respect, I highly HIGHLY recommend you never try to neutralize an acid spill with anything alkaline (basic). This will give off an incredible amount of heat. The opposite is true. Don't try to neutralize an alkaline spill with acid. Either can get boiling hot instantly. Use plain water and lots of it. Good luck.
Maybe if you are using large amounts of a strong acid but I work with incredibly pure acids regularly and if I get a spill I use white cleaning vinegar just continue pouring it over the splash and the heat is offset by the cool liquid
Have you tried the 2 comb method for flubbing up the cotton. That's how they use to straighten fibers for thread and to make cloth, and im pretty sure it would help puff ut up if you changed the direction of pull from time to time. Worth a shot.
Yes it would, you just need the same amount of moles. He used 60 grams of KNO3 which is roughly 0.6 moles. So you would need 51 grams of sodium nitrate instead.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey folks I've remade this video! ua-cam.com/video/kZ4G5rqKAJY/v-deo.html
schel sullivan so I'm working on a another batch of this,but before I went to bed I put it in a killer with some dry ice,when I woke up it was frozen, will that ruin it, or just kinda put the reaction on pause?
+Philie Spiess I don't think that it will ruin it it just may slow the nitration process down quite a bit
schel sullivan can you use other nitrates or just potassium?
Can I use potassium nitrate fertilizer? I believe it is technical grade, about 95% or better. Or would I have to recrystallize it?
Yep watched
Welp, if I wasn't on a list before I sure as hell am now. Here we go.
Go big or go home
Almost everyone is on a list for something. If you voted Republican, you're on a list. Why? Because you're potentially standing in the way of people who want power over everyone.
@@SirCumferencelel that’s is a fact my man.
@@SirCumferencelel yup, President Trump may have put a lot of good positive spin, humor in his statements but he never LIED.
When he said "they're coming for you and I in their way" he was spot on as usual. That election was stolen, revealing the depth of corruption across the board in government. 911 was a fraud like the covid fear mongering is.Give me a break, if our immune systems weren't stopping the virus we would all be dead. guns will be next.
@@johnzarollin2749 this
It is like listening to Bob Ross do home chemistry.
Rob boss
I came the comments to type this exact thing!
Why 24 hours.. seems last time I made this I made large quantity.. but only left it in few hours.. def not overnight.. but maybe yours is more potent..
The Bob Ross of boom
Chris miles @# ......that post made me piss myself laughing..... Bob ross.....ha, ha ha nice one....!!! @ stay safe mate 🍺😊👍☮️☯️🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
Right on!,,anyone that doesn't have experience working with chemicals should do lots of research before playing with chemistry,, this is the best advice I can give as a chemist,,,always safety first!!!
david qrobinson. always safety first
Tim Smart we never went to the moon.... just sayin
I was actually impressed with your recipe. In fact, if you watch the "How its made" episode ( the bbc how its made), They had a scientist make this but out of pure Acids no store bought stuff, but there were TONS of carbon ashes left behind. Yours was SOOOOO much cleaner. And I will admit, I was seriously doubting it was going to be so cool...I was wrong... So like I said I was impressed with your recipe. Good Job Bud!
+Steve SūbOhmř Bolain yes I saw that video and was not impressed with the lab demo. But they did blow up a boulder!
schel sullivan ...yes sir they did...and I won't say that wasn't cool...I was thoroughly impressed with the awesome power lol
You see, thats strange because if they are using pure or lab grade reagents, then the product should turn out better. Im guessing what happened is they were using dilute chemicals so the cotton wasnt properly dehydrated, and that led to incomplete nitration.
@@nunyabisnass1141 makes sense
@@Ajokeiguess well, if the episode they are talking about aired in the uk, its plausible they intended for a weak reaction to not excite the viewers. England especially as well as germany, but much of europe has very strict regulations on many chemicals that we in the us can get relatively easily, like you cant get either nitric acid or hydrogen peroxide above above a certain concentration, but here in the us we have very few restrictions legally speaking. Restrictions are mainly at the discretion of the suppliers so that they cant be held liable if you blow your face off after watching a youtube video, despite many of us trying our hardest, lol.
Excellent video. I as an ex - fireworks worker at a local factory, once i tried it using pure nitric & sulphuric acids, the ammount of each varied slightly - more nitric than sulfuric acid, and a small ammount of pure clinical cotton. i left the cotton soaking in the mixture for a couple of days, while it was fuming. Then after 3 days the cotton started to desintegrate. I filtered the powdery stuff, left it to dry, and tried to light it up, but nothing burnt. Obviously, i had no chemistry background, to which i was so interested in at school, but unfortunately they altered the subject to another, leaving me with a great lack of chemical knowledge. Anyway, it was a great and very interesting video, and at last i have learned how to produce it effectively. Thanks.
I've seen videos of people using lab grade pure chemicals to nitrate cotton and that the process happens in minutes.
@@schelsullivan Thanks for your reply Schel. Yes indeed, and actually many explosive factories producing T. N. T. Nitroglycerine and other powerful explosives , usually use concentrated form of acids only, and many precaution procedures are taken, so as not to run off, and cause a serious accident. These trades are very nice, and interesting, but are the most deadly in the whole wide world -- very unfortunate to be so. They need a lot of chemical knowledge and that should be started when i was at school to which i was denied. I was more interested to explode a shell, made by me as a teen, rather than studying for exams !! That was my only dream as a youth !! Thanks and keep safe.
I remember doing this with red fuming nitric acid and relatively pure sulphuric acid, and it was very easy to overdo it. It would almost instantly start fuming like crazy and disintegrate if the temperature warmed up even a bit too much. I had no idea such good results could come from just using Potassium Nitrate directly though.
@@simonphoenix3789 it is good to have the ice bath circulate from a much larger insulated reservoir filled with ice and water. Keeping the reaction cool slows it down and controls it much better. It is also good to have the rubber apron and gloves made for messing with batteries and it does not hurt to make a box with plexiglass front and a way to slide the front up and down to access the space in bulk. Then have two spots you can open so you can reach in and do the mixing and such. I used three cans of the larger type found mostly in computers and such. I put one on the bottom back corner of the two sides pulling air into the backyard vent hood and one fan I put in the back panel in the middle along the top edge. I set it to pull air out this venting the hood. One of those in-line fans with ductwork would be great especially the ones that have a place to put a filter in-line. The idea is to make the hood have lower pressure inside so any leaks in the hood will suck air in and have one controlled exhaust point so you can direct the fumes out if the hood in the safest direction. If you want to get real fancy you can hook the hood up with taps for water, electric, etc. I got spoiled with having access and free reign to a labatory with super nice fume hoods with all the bells and whistles. It even had a second thicker front panel that could be pulled down in case something might explode. I never wanted to find out the range of usefulness of that secondary thicker pane cause something that would blow thru the first pane but not a second stronger pane might be only a difference of grams.
your hands will heal but your eyes won't. please make sure they are protected.
As the Russian Hacker says "safety is number one priority!" Thanks for caring!
@@schelsullivan hi there my husband is been trying to make his own gun cotton very highly powerful but he is been having trouble getting it right like the one cotton ball with no ash left be hind can you please contact him to tell him how to make it very highly powerful and make it just right please call him 5744012465
@@kristafoster7190 is that the FBI active investigation number? Dude you can use the internet you can read basic chemistry
@@frostedlambs lol that was a year ago actually
@@frostedlambs ??
please please please don't use latex or nitrile gloves with nitric acid!! if that's all you have, no gloves is actually safer.
+BlackMagicProd I've since discovered how nitric acid will react violently with nitrile gloves. Good catch! Luckily I'm using a nitrate salt. But nitric acid is produced in the reaction so no nitrile gloves from now on.
This comment should be pinned. Thank you for your advice
Well, i've been using neoprene gloves when working with conc. sulfuric acid or fumming nitric acid. Eventually the gloves will wear out, or damage, but it will take some time to reach that point.
good point pin this comment please
You need viton gloves: better acid compatibility.
High fives all around ,guys . We're all on a List now ! Haha
Woot!
American hardware stores: Sells sulfuric acid and KNO3.
European hardware stores: I'm sorry sir, I'm going to need some ID before you buy that pack of tennis balls.
In india we can buy kno3 but sulfuric acid is what we have to make
@Science Fusion Sulfuric acid and nitric acids are also easy to get in India ive bought both in the highest concentration and highest quality from a lan supplier..that too at a reasonable rate..just need to show id..and the gun cotton was super awesome and the best thing i ever made.
@@footballartisan8990 i do not give id to any person
@@sciencefusion5352 to buy acids you need id..it's not like you'll give money and take it home😂
@@footballartisan8990 i know but i think you don't know the negative point of this system so u give your id and purchase it
This is why you don't buy cooking utensils from yard sales, flea markets, thrift stores or antique shops unless this is what you're doing with it.
Nailed it. 🤣🤣🤣
If it is Pyrex or a clone, all you ned to do is wash it with vinegar and rinse it with hot water.
Thumbs up for the bi-carb safety tip. I suggest the use of a face-shield as well. EYES!
The very end with the 4 different cotton tests was worth the thumbs up by itself - excellent end demonstration
When I was a child my Mom worked at a TNT plant and my Dad Magee Calcium Carbide. Made lots of carbide booms.
Cool
Damn, I was hoping for a good punch line there. Feel like I've been robbed. :)
Water and calcium carbide makes acetylene gas, was used in miner’s head lamps.
TNT: Trinitrotoluene, Explosive. BHT: Butylated Hydroxytoluene, Preservative used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, jet fuels, rubber, petroleum products, electrical transformer oil, embalming fluid. and FOOD that we and our pets eat.
Used to get in the coal mines, for lights
Just curious, have you try using nitric acid instead of pottasium nitrate?
+Rynku Viceroy I haven't. I work in a hardware store and this video was about the "hardware store" method. Chemistry grade acids will work much quicker than my method.
+schel sullivan thank you for your prompt reply. Your video is very helpful. I learned alot! Thanks
@@JohnDoe-pd2lh Please do share how
Nitrate salts mixed with sulfuric acid makes nitric acid bro 😂
Curiosity kills the cat... and gets one on a watch list. Oh well... at least someone will remember my birth day.😁
I just had my birthday. I baked myself a cake and sang a few lines of Happy Birthday to myself. LOL.
Go for it dude ! It's your birthday.
Lol. I kinda hope they don't spend time on running people through the mud over stuff like this. I'm sure someone with ill intent would find a more readily available option.
@@vincentdivita7800 ; Yes indeed But I'm on so many list they had to start a new file
Information brought it back.. So your good. 😅
Back when I was about 10 years old I found the recipe for Blasting powder and proudly told my Grandfather. He in turn explained how deadly it was to play with explosive recipes and how many people got hurt buy it. I filed it away as non essential knowledge to use if desperate. I like the reminders on safety and also the reminders on what is legal in different places.
Thanks mr. OSHA.
This is what it looks like when you get it right! love it.
I know right, I love that "whoosh" !
SUPER DEMO OF GUN COTTON, MY CHEMISTRY INSTRUCTOR COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT BETTER .!!! WELL DONE
PS I AM 75 YEARS YOUNG, WAS INSTRUCTED FOR GUN COTTON MAKING IN 1958.
@Astropathix XIII You're a rude ass. Did it make you feel better replying like that to their comment? Sad life you must live, having nothing better to do than put down someone who wasn't born with a cell phone in their hand. You probably think you're better, but in all reality you have spent so much time with technology because your parents did not care enough to show you attention, and needed you distracted so as to not bother them.
I loaded it up in 357 mag and 4570 damn good and better than black powder and some smokeless powder
I might have to try this. Your video reminded me of a episode of Mr Wizard I saw way back but he used paper
Yup the same method works with cellulose based paper.
That's called flashpaper. You can also buy it at magic shops.
A few fun facts: gun cotton was the explosive that ran WW1. They found that gun cotton is unstable as prepared with industrial grade chemicals, this was overcome with rinsing with ultra pure water - just about any impurity makes guncotton unstable.
For those wondering, what's happening is the sulfuric drain cleaner is reacting with the potassium nitrate to form nitric acid, amongst many other compounds. The cotton, immersed in the nitric acid, takes up the nitrous (I think it's nitrous radicals but am not sure about that part) takes up the nitrous compound onto it's molecule. When it burns, it's just like any other nitrated compound, the O3 in the nitrous compound (nitrogen is the carrier atom, so to speak) breaks off due to the heat of the reaction and recombines with the carbon of the cotton to burn really fast and with a lot of additional heat.
Unless you're sure of what you're doing, dont try combining other carboniferous compounds like this - you'll likely end up with something really unstable causing very unpleasant results.
What he's showing you would be fun to try once, but go buy some commercial gunpowder for your activities. A derivative of this process using a commercial form of cellulose creates nitrocellulouse which many smokeless powders are made of. It's safer (stable) and cheaper to use.
By the way, be careful where you dump the residual water from this operation, even if you neutralize it. What this guy passed over is that there likely are other compounds in the original materials which may be reacting with the nitric acid which are thrown out in the bath water, so to speak. While they're diluted down a lot, if you dump them somewhere outside, be sure to sprinkle it over a wide area, particularly if you do this more than once.
Now here is another fun fact that you absolutely should not try - just know about it. Iodide crystals immersed in nitric acid create Nitrogen tri-Iodide. When dried out on filter paper Nitrogen Tri-Iodide is so unstable that a fly walking across it has been know to set it off, and it's a real explosive. Dont play with it, but realize that things put in nitric acid can be very very dangerous and unstable and unsafe. God gave you a brain, be curious, but use it.
Nitric acid is some dangerous material. I once told a friend that I'd rather have a pallet of TNT lying around my yard than have a barrel of HNo3 around.
the main problem isnt the water. its the fad acids on the cutton. They washed cutton in pottash or soda solution to remove all fad. If the cutton isnt clean enough it does auto ignite over time. washing it with urea solution after nitration would be also good the urea decompuse free NOx makes it instabile too.
I have a question. I have pure cellulose powder. Can I make nitrocellulose/ gun cotton with it? Will it be a better product? Since it is directly cellulose powder? What about the stability?
use carding combs to pull the cotton out into strands like wool fibers.
I have my Great Grand Mothers combs, thought the same thing
Ididn't see your coment before I put mine in, but great minds etc.
Ans spinning wheel to make it into a string... then slow motion camera record it to find out the burn rate. Would look amazing if its say 20meters long.
Adding to your algorithm. Thanks for the demo ! I’ll use this for cracking rock to get at the shiny.
Have seen this before but never knew the mixture Now I can add this to my list of hobbies. Thanks!
You earned that one. Well done. Thanks.
Pretty cool!!! I need to try this...... I've already got the potassium nitrate on hand,for my black powder activities. Great video!
ATF , I swear I'm just a simple man I see cool, dangerous gun stuff.. I click!!
Thanks for the lesson.
Be careful if you try this!
Kenny Wright
Who's watching this again in 2021 ? Never get tired of watching this.
Really cool share. I thought it was impossible to get nitric acid and your video and a quick search proves it can be made. Safety is extremely important here good on you stressing that. Peace, thanks for teaching us something.
Sulphuric acid is as restricted as nitric above a certain strength.
I am a formulation chemist and I want to create sodium azide [ for a project I am doing for a University this summer].
I like your tutorials.
I'd like to see what are a list of applications.
Its a major ingredient in modern smokeless powders for one. For me its really about how much fun it is to play with. I love burning in my hand, its like a science explosion that you can hold. Ehem, not that I recommend you try any of this at home!
Kenny Wright
schel sullivan
Place the cotton on a rubber lined table and take a plastic rolling pin and roll out the cotton fibers until there is no more water left, then repeat. Actually you could use rolls of cotton which makes what I just said much easier, just unrool the cotton and squeeze the heck out of it. Then take card files and separate your cotton until all you have left is this really puffy ball of cotton fiber, then process it for whatever you want to use it for. I use it for a kick in my rifle primers, let me tell you. It REALLY works. So thanks for the idea.
This recipe works great! I'd give you a thumbs up but I don't have them anymore.
Before 9/11 we use to get dynamite to shoot rock holes for poles. We had a case of sticks leaking nitro. So we decided to take it up a holler and set it off. Little did we know we put it right on top of a 8" natural gas line. When we went back there was a crater blowed out with the gas line running right thru the middle. How the line didn't rupture was a miracle. This video brought back that memory.
You could probably nitrate glycerin, or hexamine the same way. End result is nitroglycerin, and RDX respectively. RDX is used in C-4.
Baby steps! I know enough to know what I dont know.
@@schelsullivan That is a master level mentality. Only those new to something believe they know everything. Only those who've been at something for a while believe they know enough. Only a master knows enough to know what they don't know.
You can get sodium nitrate in the plant care section in 5 pound bags. Much more nitrate than the potassium nitrate. If you plan to use calcium nitrate, do the measurements on what would end up as CaSO4 and pour the free nitric acid into a bowl or beaker then add your sulfuric acid to that. One very cool use is to treat cofee filters. The nitrocellulose us extremely good for filtering stuff out of very acidic solutions such as filtering rhodium out of platinum chloride solutions or garbage out of gold chloride solutions. ❤
The Bob Ross of future revolutionaries.
Thank you.
Based
That last cotton ball was perfection
Very satisfying when you get it right
One of your first videos. Still come back to watch it. And use it for reference. Just wanted to say thank you.
Thanks for the comparison at the end
that was pretty cool I learned a lot I think I'll try it maybe in the fall but thank you very much
I did tons of research to ensure I did this as safely as I could! Back yard science can be fun but also dangerous. Be careful!
Donald Smith 4
schel sullivan
So this reaction produces HNO3 which in turn nitrates the cellulose?
My friend, do or don't do but don't try! Try is when you don't know what you are doing and get yourself plus maybe someone else hurt or worse. I'm 71 now with no bad accidents and I have been doing this and home made "soup" since I was 14. Be careful but more so be sure!
I like the way you set up the less than perfect balls, and well demonstrated the effectiveness of fully nitrating, thanks, very nicely done.
thanks for the video. Jules Verne mentioned this and described the process in "from the earth to the moon" and I was curious what it actually looked like.
They did, the primary reason was its ability to be wet. Note this book was written circa 1865. The author Jules Verne chose between Florida and Texas for the launch site. And the gun club decided to use gun cotton to propel the craft to the moon.
Jules Verne was quite enthusiastic about guncotton (and rightly so). The process for making it (and also nitroglycerine) as well as its use and comparison to gunpowder is described in pretty fine detail in one of his other books, The Mysterious Island
@@stamasd8500 was JUST going to mention The Mysterious Island
Very well done great video thank you for sharing
Thanks I always wondered about Gun Cotton and a little knowledge could come in Handy
Interesting alternative for NC powder would be Schultze powder. It was made from thin wood boards. He stamped the grains out of it with hole punches. Than washed it with soda solution and bleached it. After that he used nitric/sulfuric acid mix neutralized it with soda and soaked it later in Bariumnitrate or Potassiumnitrate solution. It was famos for Shotguns but to aggresive for rifles. Later he used Ethylacetat to wash and seal it and the burning speed got lowerd. I think it would usable in handguns where you need burning speed.
Adding some salt to your ice bath should help too.I'm thinking about trying dry ice and acetone
schel sullivan oh,what concentration of acid would you recommend?
Done that with a few reactions but never while creating high explosives 🧐. We only live once though so science on🤓🤘
Chemical resistant gloves can be bought for $20 or under. Long sleeves or a bib plus safety glasses and or a face shield would be a must if I gave this a try.
You're wearing the wrong type of gloves here.
Be sure you take them off before testing your gun cotton or else your gloves just might go: "BANG" too!
.
The low nitric acid concentration will not nitrate the nitrile gloves.
That’s really quite impressive your method seems best
Good quality video. Excellent results for gun cotton.
Do you reload any ammunition with your nitro-cellulose ?
And, if you do, how do you measure each load ?
Henry
I dont currently own any firearms. Would be interested to learn exactly what steps follow in producing smokeless powder though.
Great work . Thanks for sharing this
Best video I've seen on this subject. Thanks for the comparison at the end!
+Sam Dlugach glad you enjoyed it. It's amazing how fast it burns when you get it right.
Chemistry is based on stoichiometry. Therefore, sodium bicarbonate can be used to neutralize the acid, after the nitration is completed, in only minor excess. Therefore, you don’t need to excessively wash and wash, as you mentioned in this video to remove sodium bicarbonate. Acid and base react to form salt and water. The salt is easily soluble in the water. This will be a safer end product, with all acid neutralized. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to watch this neutralization occurring via foaming. When the foaming stops, end the addition of sodium bicarbonate. Other ways may be mathematically, or by monitoring PH of solution.
Have you ever left it to "soak" longer than 24 hours? And did it make a difference?
Thanks for all of your videos, or at least the one's I've seen so far. Keep it up. Love what is see. Very entertaining
Very interesting video.. thanks..👍
Cool, thank you! That was quite intriguing. It always blows my mind to find that something is actually so simple but still requires artful attention. Wish i could just make my own smokeless powder, lol. Not about to ruin any barrels with experiments, tho. This would be cool for like a magic washcloth trick or something (no pranks, someone had the idea somewhere in time. I could hear it from here. Think it through before you freaking do.)
This is cool for guys that do magic. It's one of the main components of throwing fireballs.
Some of the original gun cotton factories would just take them out of the Acid Bath and press them into bricks without worrying about the acid they would have very high temperature ceramic molds and press all the fluid out and compress the cotton when it's compressed it allows it to burn all at once creating a very nice explosion because it was intended to be used for mining and was until the invention of dynamite
Thanks for watching. I have some mining demonstrations online. Its amazing.
schel sullivan can this be used in Bullet casings as propellant? insted of Powder..
@@servantapashia7724 the powder in modern firearm cartridges is nitrocellulose based
Wrote a comment not long ago saying I was going to try making guncotton. I did and WOW it worked the first time. This stuff is so much fun. I have another batch working. Hopefully it will work as good or better. Keep the great experiments coming. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Later.
Gun cotton is the most fun pyrotechnic Ive had experience with. Once I saw someone light it there hand I was hooked. Happy New Year!
How do you do it? The first time my cotton dissolved, the second time it dissolved when I washed it.
And then the liquid that I'm reacting to is colorless unlike the yellowish color in the video
you could always try a pair of wool carders to separate the fibers
Rick Coona
Is
Russell Symmonds
???
Great video ..... So what is gun cotton used for ???
Thankkk youu im so sick of black gun powder im gonna be using this instead from now on.
This is literal magic
In an Old Book i ve read they used an mix of 2 parts pottasiumnitrate und 3 parts Sulfuric acid bei wight.They put the acid over the nitrate. If you nitrate over 40 C you only get Kollodium that can be used as gun powder too but is weaker. For high nitration you need to be under 30 C. With Concentrated nitric acid an sulfuric acid it took only 2hours than the acid starts to decompuse the guncutton slowly.
Nice book.
@@brandysigmon9066 How much minimum percent nitric acid must be for nitration?
@@brandysigmon9066 Thanks for fast reply.I have 60% nitric and 98% pure sulfuric.I had problem,temperature was arround 20-25c but cotton goes jelly.I wash that slury stuff after 2-3h and it burn like regular cotton.No nitratio at all.Maybe nitric not so stron,actually i mix acids and add cotton in 10sec.Maybe i need to wait some time than add cotton,like you says at comment.Idk.My acid easy disolve copper and lead..but maybe it too weak for cotton nitration.Give me some advice.Btw my ice bath was extra loaded with ice and ammonium nitrate so it keep low temp for long time.
Accipiter Nisus When the cotton turns to "mush" it usually means the temperature has been too high. When you first mix your acids it causes an exothermic reaction meaning it gets hot. Mix your acids slowly and let the temp of the acids come down before adding your cotton. That should fix your problem
@@brandysigmon9066 Thanks again buddy il give a try
very good informational video. Thank you
I believe that the efficiency of this reaction is improved by adding nitric acid to keep the pH of the solution acidic as the cotton is converted.
He's making nitric acid by combining sulfuric acid and potassium nitrate. Easier to start of with fuming nitric acid to begin with. But that defeats the purpose of the hardware store components video.
Would it be possible to gently use cotton cards to pull the fibers apart?
Appears to me that it would be great for reloading primers. I would think a small base of red phosphorus and this gun cotton under the anvil would work great.
That’s what I’m interested in it for.
I belong to a Black Powder Group
and I go through a lot of primers…
red phosphorus is extremely difficult to get in any quantity, because we certainly wouldn't want drugs to be available in the U.S. ............
is this stable??
Great video, try a couple of wire dog coat brushes to tease the dry fibres apart. Thanks for posting.
Not a good idea to use metal objects around compounds that oxidize rapidly
Great ,a verbal tutorial from no other than 'Mumbles Magoo ".nice results.
I read somewhere that they take three cuttings from a cotton boll. I think they use the third cutting for guncotton. I'll see if I can find out later
would charcoal help slow the combustion to make it better suited for cartridges? What ratio do you use again?
Powdered graphite is one of the coatings used in modern smokeless powder, but definitely NOT the only one.
@@lkilkenny9426 powdered graphite is pretty easy to get ahold of though. Thank you.
Just remember that graphite is not the only thing used to regulate the burning rates of the various commercial powders!!! I *STRONGLY* advise that you *DO NOT* attempt to load any ammo with homemade nittocellulose!
Nitrocellulose/nitrocotton is the precursor to SMOKELESS POWDER, A WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY DIFFERENT COMPOUND FROM BLACK POWDER!!!!!
You mentioned a better way needed to fluff the cotton balls back out, what about using carding brushes like one would use for sheep wool?
No metal bristles...
Could you use this in percussion caps?
OK, that was the problem - the baking soda bath afterwards - I've seen other folks do this and while they usually get a complete burn, it's slower but they always washed the cotton with baking soda
What can you do with this? Can you use it for gun powder, like modern ammunition?
I have a vague memory of old books talking about gun cotton in muzzle-loading firearms, but couldn't begin to guess amounts
Mix the acid in slow and it won't get so hot.
What if I use pure potassium nitrate and pure sulphuric acid
should work really well, the drain cleaner I used is labeled "93% virgin sulfuric acid with inhibitors" in the safety data sheet.
That's pretty much what is going on here.
Its been a few years since chemistry class, but those 2 ingredients make Nitric acid.
It's amazing all the different stuff that you can do with Nitric acid 😂
Hmmm... Would one of the 'cheap' all plastic "salad spinners" help in the rinsing process???
Don't see why not
Awesome ! But, my greatest concern is the burn rate, once encapsulated in a cartridge. That being if it is too slow for pistol rounds, or too fast for rifle rounds. Or vice-versa.
Yes Im not a firearm or reloading expert at all. But I know enough that reload with improper propellants could lead to the gun exploding.
3:40 kinda like brussel sprouts n cheese in my gut...lol. It too becomes an explosive mixture
That was impressive! 👍
What makes learning all of this from you even better is that you bear a striking resemblance to Ted Kaczynski.
the ice man ??
the unibonger?
Eric M . .
Have you tried purifying your potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid?
Purify sulfuric acid by distillation by Nurd Rage
Purification of Kn03 using Recrystallization by zhmapper
is that the water that has been used to create that cotton, or rather that is left inside that cotton after the waterheavy phase in cotton production is over?
If you are unsure if your spoon is stainless, dip it in. You'll know pretty quick. 🤣
By the way kids, if you want to make most nitrate salts, you need to distill the nitric acid after making it with the drain opener and stump remover. Gun cotton is easy. RDX is not. You need more pure nitric acid for that.
Doing gods work. Keep it up
You can also use nitric acid
+Brandon Pou yes the professional method uses Chemistry Grade acids but this is about the hardware store hack version
can you tell me what is the concentration of sulfuric acid in this remedy?
Thank you.
+Jozsef Ienciu no problem. Stay safe!
Half a kg of gunpowder in Turkey costs 65 dollars . I need to find out how this is produced at home
With all respect, I highly HIGHLY recommend you never try to neutralize an acid spill with anything alkaline (basic). This will give off an incredible amount of heat. The opposite is true. Don't try to neutralize an alkaline spill with acid. Either can get boiling hot instantly. Use plain water and lots of it. Good luck.
Maybe if you are using large amounts of a strong acid but I work with incredibly pure acids regularly and if I get a spill I use white cleaning vinegar just continue pouring it over the splash and the heat is offset by the cool liquid
Why vinegar and not baking soda solution? @@seanchannie5822
Why vinegar and not baking soda solution? @@seanchannie5822
Can this cotton use in the 12 gauge gun cartridge?
Have you tried the 2 comb method for flubbing up the cotton. That's how they use to straighten fibers for thread and to make cloth, and im pretty sure it would help puff ut up if you changed the direction of pull from time to time. Worth a shot.
A wire dog brush would work I think.
Very cool video my friend. It may be an older video but it is well done and informative as well. Thank you.
So would you think sodium nitrate would also work in place of the potassium nitrate as a substitute? You should also do a video on flash paper :)
Yes it would, you just need the same amount of moles. He used 60 grams of KNO3 which is roughly 0.6 moles. So you would need 51 grams of sodium nitrate instead.