Gelatine explosive manufacture

Semi-gelatine explosives (see p. 49) are manufactured and cartridged as powder explosives, although the presence of a thickened nitroglycerine base gives them properties which can approach those of gelatines. 

Gelatine explosives are more costly in raw materials than the powder or semi-gelatine types, although this can to some extent be offset by greater ease, and therefore less expense, in manufacture. Their popularity throughout the world rests on a number of important advantages over other available explosives ... 

Control of exudation depends mainly on the suitable choice of the nitrocellulose used. Some lack of uniformity in this product is certainly desirable. This offers no serious difficulty, although it is necessary to ensure a constant watch on manufacturing processes to see that quality is maintained. In other gelatine explosives, particularly those containing ammonium nitrate, exudation can be induced by slow chemical reaction. The addition of alkalis, for example, can liberate ammonia which in turn can react with nitrocellulose and cause it to lose its power of binding nitroglycerine. Such effects are accelerated at high temperatures and under wet conditions and it is usual practice to test all explosives under such adverse conditions before they are put on the market. 

A brand of gelatinous permissible explosives manufactured by Austin Powder Co., Cleveland, O. 

Was also used in the manufacture of safety and permissible gelatinous explosives. 

Coparisow further states that disposal may be made of the residue from the mother hquor—which residue consists of a complex mixture of various dinitrotoluenes and trinitrotoluenes— by nitrating this with a mixed acid containing only 15 per cent nitric acid. By this method, a liquid TNT is obtained, which has considerable power, and has the property of gelatinizing collodion cotton, the same as nitroglycerine does. This liquid product is used in the manufacture of gelatinized explosives. 

C 12 H 14 0 4 (0N0 2 ) 6, is not soluble in the above liquids, although it is soluble in acetone or acetic ether. It is very essential, therefore, that the nitro-cotton used in the manufacture of the gelatine explosives should be as free as possible from gun-cotton, otherwise little lumps of undissolved nitro-cotton will be left in the finished gelatine. The non-nitrated or unconverted cotton should also be very low, in fact considerably under 1/2 per cent. 

The exudation test consists in freezing and thawing the gelatine three times in sueeession. Under these conditions there should be no exudation of nitro-glycerine. All the materials used in the manufacture of gelatine explosives should be subjected to analytical examination before use, as sueeess largely depends upon the purity of the raw materials. The wood-pulp, for instanee, must be examined for aeidity. 

Uses Manufacture of acetic acid, acetic anhydride, aldol, aniline dyes, 1-butanol, 1,3-butylene glycol, cellulose acetate, chloral, 2-ethylhexanol, paraldehyde, pentaerythritol, peracetic acid, pyridine derivatives, terephthalic acid, trimethylolpropane, flavors, perfumes, plastics, synthetic rubbers, disinfectants, drugs, explosives, antioxidants, yeast silvering mirrors hardening gelatin fibers. 

In rhe manufacture of Ammonia Gelatins, the same procedure is followed as described under "Gelatinous Dynamites with an Explosive Base". AN and other "dope" ingredients are added in pulverized form to the NG—NC gel and the ensemble stirred until complete blending... 

Uses Ethylene glycol dinitrate is a yellow, highly explosive liquid. It is extensively used in the manufacture of commercial dynamites and blasting gelatin. 

AUSTROGEL G1 is a safe-to-handle, cap-sensitive gelatinous ammonium nitrate explosive. This successor explosive replacing -> Gelatine Donarit 1 does not contain any nitro-aromatics harmful to health such as -> Dinitrotoluene and -> Trinitrotoluene, and is manufactured by the DYNAMIT NOBEL Wien Company. 

Nitrocellulose, which is the most important component of single-base and double-base powders and multibase rocket propellants. It is also used to gelatinize commercial explosives. Outside the explosives industry, it is also used in the manufacture of lacquers and varnishes ... 

This term denotes the increase of the detonation sensibility of explosives by finely dispersed air bubbles. The loss in sensitivity to detonation of gelatinous nitroglycerine explosives by long storage has been known since the time of Alfred Nobel it is due to the loss or coagulation of the air bubbles that may have been left in the explosive by the manufacturing process. This effect can be explained by the adiabatic compression and heating of the air inclusions as the detona-... 

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