Eastern Dynamite

US production of NS began in 1888 under the name of Volney Powder. Improved NS stability was achieved by Hough, who operated two plants in New Jersey for the production of NS. Later (1905 to 1907) Dupont and Eastern Dynamite Corp experimented with NS expls. At about that time Trojan Powder Co became interested in NS. It soon became and stili is the largest manufacturer of NS. Numerous patents (from 1918 to 1945) have been issued to W.O. Snelling (of Trojan Powder Co) for the prepn, stabilization and use of NS (Ref 21a)... 

In 1902 the duPont Co established at Gibbstown, NJ, its research laboratory known as the Eastern Laboratory, so-called for its connection with the Eastern Dynamite Co. 

Another major manufacturer was the Eastern Dynamite Corporation, at Wilmington, Delaware, which developed the patents of Holmes [26]. The starch was nitrated by means of mixed nitric-sulphuric acid and then stabilized by prolonged boiling with water in the presence of calcium carbonate, for 75-100 hr. In later patents the addition of ammonium salts to the water was recommended. 

Another (and the best) patent of this period, covering the production of starch nitrate, was issued to F. B. Holmes of Woodbury, New Jersey, and assigned to the Eastern Dynamite Corporation of Wilmington, Delaware. He treated starch with mixed acids (in a preferred proportion of nitric acid, 32.5% sulfuric acid, 64.5% water, 3%), using 25 parts of dried starch to 100 parts of the mixed acids. He stabilized the product by boiling it for 75-100 hours in water containing calcium carbonate. Later patents covered a wide variety of ammonium compounds as stabilizers. Millions of pounds of starch nitrate were made by Holmes patents. 

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