Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 154 Failed Nitrocellulose

Huh... finally completed a milestone thing, Xiao Bailang flicked the newly made pottery vat, and the crisp clanging sound was louder than the bells of heaven.For more than ten days, the brothers in the industrial department who lived and ate in the kiln all shed tears—it was not easy. After many failures in tire making, drying in the shade, glazing, and firing temperature control, they finally succeeded.Next, there is a minimum set of equipment for large-scale pickling of seafood, making soy sauce, and production of light chemicals, and there is hope for future flush toilets.

"The days when I was unable to make my own pottery jars and completely depended on the people of the Ming Dynasty are gone forever!" Xiao Bailang made a sonorous and forceful voice beside the pottery jars.I posed a pose, but unfortunately Ding Ding was not there, so I didn't take the camera.

Although the principle of pottery vats is simple, this kind of pottery with a large diameter and relatively thin body is the most difficult to make. Travelers have made small-caliber ceramic pipes and vats in the past, and they have no experience with such a large size.In the end, the industrial department checked countless materials, and found all the craftsmen who could make pottery in Lingao, and only then did the firing of pottery vats be completed.This is not an easy job. According to the potter who helped, only the pottery kilns near Qiongshan County in the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture have such capabilities.They were also surprised to be able to trial-produce it.

Industrialized basic pottery workshops initially have production capacity.The brick and tile yard itself has all the conditions for making and firing kilns, as long as the temperature can reach 800 degrees Celsius.

With such large and small crock pots, the chemical industry group can finally start their great process of local chemical engineering.Among all the chemicals most urgently needed by travelers, sulfuric acid and nitric acid are the most widely used, especially nitric acid, which is used in the manufacture of most explosives and pyrotechnics, from the artifact nitrocellulose to the most dangerous of**.

To make nitric acid, there must be nitrates.Before the synthetic ammonia industry, nitric acid must have nitrates to manufacture.China's natural nitrate ore is distributed in Sichuan and Northwest China, and there is no such thing in the south. It depends on collecting nitrate soil to refine nitrate.This is dirty and inefficient work.If it weren't for the timely delivery of a lot of saltpeter from the Guangzhou Advance Station, the chemical department would have been reduced to the role of digging toilet pigsty.

There is enough saltpeter - it is all used for smuggling and exporting in Guangdong, and the quality is very good.He has a lot of black powder in his hand, so all the saltpeter can be used to make nitric acid.

How about nitric acid?Almost all time travel enthusiasts have seen the mysterious island and know that nitric acid can be made from sulfuric acid. If there is nitric acid, there must be sulfuric acid.

Ji Situ thought for a while, the modern industrialized production of sulfuric acid generally has three different sources, one is the by-product of the coal coking industry, the other is the production of sulfur and saltpeter, and the third is the production of pyrite.The three methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they also have their own indigenous technological process, but for the time traveler, there is nothing to play at the current stage-there is no raw material.Fortunately, Guangzhou has already purchased soap alum. Although the output of this process is very small, fortunately, the process is extremely simple, and they can make it with the laboratory equipment they have at hand.

Extracting vitriol oil from soap alum is the most traditional and simplest sulfuric acid production method.Green alum oil was also used on a small scale by the ancients, mostly in the field of metal processing. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, benefiting from the introduction of technology from Western missionaries, some people had already produced nitric acid and aqua regia, but the people who made it obviously did not realize that these things had What specific role, if given time, maybe it will create a new era of Chinese chemistry.However, the slave-owner regime eager to "establish a unified country" quickly ended this possibility.

The production efficiency of saponin dry distillation is extremely low, and the sulfuric acid produced is only about 10% of the raw material, which is only a temporary substitute.This distillation method is extremely polluting and dangerous. The chemical industry team chose a place with a suitable wind direction in the Bopu Heavy Industry Zone to build a factory building.Distillation started with dry distillation, and all participants were given labor protection overalls and masks from the chemical plant. After a few days, there were 20 kilograms of concentrated sulfuric acid.

With concentrated sulfuric acid, nitric acid can be made.Using distillation again, saltpeter is added to sulfuric acid and then heated slowly to obtain concentrated nitric acid by taking advantage of the volatility of nitric acid.This process would release a lot of heat, and for the first time, the ice cubes made by Fengcheng Wheel's cold storage were put to a serious use-the ice-water mixture was used to mix the retort for condensing nitric acid.

With nitric acid, the gun cotton, the artifact of time travel, was immediately brought up.Gun cotton is not only more explosive than black gunpowder, but also a very good propellant.

After the approval of the test plan, Li Di began to try to manufacture smokeless explosives - gun cotton for the army.It stands to reason that this is a matter for the chemical industry group, but the chemical industry group is skeptical about the ability to manufacture nitrocellulose.Li Di of the navy suddenly stopped working on steam engines, and volunteered to take over the production of nitrocellulose—on the condition that the navy must give priority to the supply of nitrocellulose after it is put into mass production.

First get a few clay pots and the acid and alkali needed for a production, and take 15 kilograms of cotton.Caustic soda depends on inventory, so it needs to be approved by the Planning Commission. Fortunately, zha medicine is a military matter, and the Planning Commission quickly approved it.

Because caustic soda and nitric acid are corrosive, Li Di put on the chemical gloves and apron borrowed from Ji Situ.

Gun cotton needs very pure absorbent cotton. Generally, zha pharmaceutical factories buy ready-made products, and the traversers can only make it by themselves.

The first is to process the cotton, tear it apart, and pick out visible impurities such as small stones and dead leaves.Wash the cotton with water until the effluent is clear.Put the cotton in a ceramic pot, add water until it can be submerged, then add caustic soda equivalent to 2% to 5% of the water weight in the pot, cover it and boil it, then simmer for 10 minutes on low heat.Let cool, rinse with plenty of water, and rub for about 10 minutes while washing.Put the washed cotton on clean paper to dry in the sun outside.Then pour the remaining alkaline water into the waste alkali bucket.Begin to configure concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid into a mixed acid for esterification according to the ratio of *:*.Although it is the dry season in Lingao, the air humidity is still a bit high, the mixed acid is already cold, and the cotton has not been dried yet. It seems that there must be a dryer in the future.The military industry of the Eighth Route Army is dried on a kang, which can be learned.

Li Di put more than half of the dried cotton into the mixed acid, pressed it, stirred it, covered it, looked at the watch, and after 10 minutes, took it out, put it aside, and put the rest of the cotton in , Mixed together twice after finishing.

Put the waste acid into the waste acid barrel and continue to stabilize it.It took a full 6 hours, and finally the first batch of collodion was produced, but it was still wet, and it had to be dried in the shade, and it had to be spread out as much as possible, otherwise it would be troublesome.

Until the evening, I finally had dry gun cotton, 16 kilograms, and took it to the artillery team for testing!They're pretty much the Weapons Research Institute now.

These days, there are explosions every day from Bopu's shooting range, and you can often see Lin Shenhe, Bai Yu and others standing by the river panting for breath with black smoke all over their bodies.

Li Di came to the shooting range with the newly made cotton, and suddenly heard a loud noise, and saw the half-length barrel of a cannon flying in the air, which made him jump.It took quite a while before I saw Lin Shenhe crawling out of the ditch covered in black, and he nodded repeatedly and said to the people who got out behind:

"Our gun barrel life is better than expected."

Li Di hurried over, handed the gun cotton to him, and said, "This is my newly made gun cotton, please test it with the artillery team. Use it carefully, the power of this thing is not comparable to that of black guns!!! "

But seeing Lin Shenhe's puzzled face, he asked, "Are you a strong cotton or a weak cotton?"

"Strong cotton?" Li Di looked confused.

"I'm sweating, big brother, you don't even know this and make gun cotton?" Lin Shenhe was taken aback, "The performance of gun cotton with different nitrogen content is completely different."

"I think it should be weak cotton." Although Bai Yu is a weapon manufacturing professional, he also knows a little bit about pyrotechnics. "It is difficult to produce gun cotton with high nitrogen content with native nitric acid and esterification."

"Let's try it." Li Di was a little emboldened now.

After half an hour, Lin Shenhe came to Li Di with a dark face and a strong smell of gunpowder smoke, and said angrily, "The gun cotton you made can be used to make paint or glue."

"I did exactly what the book said!" Li Di shouted, "Standard laboratory procedures."

"The problem is this one doesn't detonate at all."

"Maybe the nitrogen content is not enough." Bai Yu said.

"Another person who was poisoned by Jules Verne."

Verne described the manufacturing process of fire cotton very simply, but the actual production of fire cotton is not easy to do in a simple environment.Especially in the process of esterification, important indicators such as nitrogen content and viscosity must be controlled quite accurately by controlling many factors such as nitrating agent composition, reaction temperature, and reaction time.

How difficult is it? In the technical database of the traverser, there are many brochures and books on the indigenous method of zha drug manufacturing, including the indigenous method of * and Hesuojin, but there is no gun cotton.It can be seen that gun cotton is not an easy thing to make.

According to the amount of nitrogen content in the industry, collodion is divided into No. 1 strong cotton, No. 2 strong cotton, No. 3 weak cotton, explosive cotton, collodion cotton, varnish cotton, celluloid cotton and other grades, which are manufactured by local methods. The nitrocellulose can reach the level of celluloid cotton at most.

"It's a waste of so much nitric acid and caustic soda." Li Di was very annoyed.Chemical products are inherently tense.

"It would be great if we could use the level of celluloid cotton to make propellants. Although it's a bit bad." Lin Shenhe thought for a while, "Wu Yunduo said in his memoirs that when they reloaded bullets, one was black gunpowder, and the other was Go buy scrap film reels and use celluloid for propellants."

"Would you like to try it as a propellant?"

"It can't be used like this. It has to be processed into powder and then compacted." Bai Yu shook his head. Easy."

(Note: It is impossible to produce qualified nitrocellulose with Li Di's method. If there are various analytically pure chemicals in the laboratory environment, then it is not a problem to make celluloid cotton. But the formal production of nitrocellulose is complicated In addition to the difficulty in controlling the nitrogen content, the process of removing acid in cotton is not simply washed with water. In the early days, nitrocellulose was completely abandoned by the army because of incomplete removal of free acid and frequent accidents.)

(End of this chapter)