Explosives starch nitrate based

According to Snelling, i starch nitrate was first made in the United States around 1888 as a constituent of Dr. Volney s powder. The du Ponts experimented with starch nitrate as early as 1899, but it was not until 1905 that a plant was erected for its manufacture and use in the non-freezing explosive called Nyalite. The manufacture (by Du Pont) of Arctic starch nitrate explosives was started about 1907, and this explosive was made and sold extensively for a period of more than ten years. Starch nitrate explosives were also made in Canada. The Trojan Powder Co. was manufacturing starch nitrate for commercial blasting in this pre-World War I era. In the construction of the Panama Canal, large amounts of starch nitrate based explosives were used. . . and produced by the Trojan Powder Co. at its Eastern and West Coast plants. This company is at present the principal, if not the sole, source of commercial starch nitrate. 

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