Sugar, nitrated mixtures

Among the several other esters of sucrose that have been described, the octanitrate deserves some mention. This substance has been known for many years and has possible uses as an explosive, although Marshall states that it is probably too unstable in its sirupy form to be used as an explosive. Since that time, however, new methods of manufacture have been described and the octanitrate of sucrose may be obtained in a highly purified and crystalline form. The nitration is carried out with a nitric acid-sulfuric acid mixture in the presence of nitrated butyl lactate and carbon tetrachloride. By using different proportions of these solvents and also others, the form in which sucrose octanitrate separates can be varied at will so that it is possible to obtain the nitrated sugar in a form suitable for blasting operations. 

Howden Dynamite. A mixture compounded in 1870 in San Francisco by J. Howden and consisting of NG 75 absorbed in a mixture of sugar, magnesium carbonate and potassium nitrate. This Dynamite was stronger and better than Nobel s Kieselguhr Dynamite Ref Blasters Handbook (1952), p 5 (1958)... 

Solutions of glycerin with either grape sugar (glucose) or milk sugar (lactose) produce on nitration compounds similar to nitrated glycerin-sucrose mixtures, suitable for use in low-freezing dynamites... 

The insertion of a second oxygen atom in a sugar furanose ring in essence converts that moiety to an acetal. This modiftcation leads to another false substrate for viral reverse transcriptase. Glycosilation of the silylated purine (46-1) with chiral dioxolane (46-2) prepared in several steps from anhydromannose in the presence of ammonium nitrate affords the coupling product as a mixture of anomers (46-3). The mixture of products is then separated on a chromatographic column. The desired diastereomer (46-3) is reacted with ammonia to afford the product (46-4)... 

Previous- to this, however, Nobel worked on expls consisting of NG partially absorbed by mixtures of combustible materials (such as woodmeal, charcoal, rosin, sugar, starch, etc) with oxidizers (such as K or Na nitrates) and was granted Englpat 442 of 1869- These expls, as well as Ammoniakrut and Seranin, setved as prototypes for expls known in the US as "Ammonia Dynamites or "Ammonium Nitrate Dynamites - These Dynamites are used in the USA, Canada and Mexico (See also in Vol 1 of Encycl, under AMMONIUM NITRATE BLASTING EXPLOSIVES)(Ref 58, pp A341 to A356)... 

According to the recent experiments of Fleury, Brissaud and Lhoste [12J, the nitration of sugars can be carried out at a temperature of about 0°C by means of a mixture prepared from 2 parts anhydrous nitric add, 1 part acetic anhydride and 1 part acetic acid. A quantitive yield is thus achieved. Further, crystallization of the products is achieved more easily than with esters obtained by nitration with nitric and sulphuric acid. 

Solutions of cane sugar in glycol, and of glucose and lactose in glycerin, have been nitrated to produce mixtures of nitric esters comparable to nitrohydrene. 

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