nitrocellulose

nitrocellulose, a mixture of nitric esters of cellulose, and a highly flammable compound that is the main ingredient of modern gunpowder and is also employed in certain lacquers and paints. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the basis of the earliest man-made fibres and plastic materials.

Composition, properties, and manufacture of nitrocellulose

Cellulose is a naturally occurring polymer obtained from wood pulp or the short fibres (linters) that adhere to cotton seeds. It consists of repeating glucose units that have the chemical formula C₆H₇O₂(OH)₃ and the following molecular structure:

In unaltered cellulose the X in the molecular formula represents hydrogen (H), indicating a presence on the cellulose molecule of three hydroxyl (OH) groups. The OH groups form strong hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules, with the result that cellulose cannot be softened by heat or dissolved by solvents without causing chemical decomposition. However, upon treatment with nitric acid in the presence of a sulfuric acid catalyst and water, OH groups are replaced by nitro (NO₂) groups. In theory, all three OH groups can be replaced, resulting in cellulose trinitrate, which contains more than 14 percent nitrogen. In practice, however, most nitrocellulose compounds are dinitrates, averaging 1.8 to 2.8 nitro groups per molecule and containing from 10.5 to 13.5 percent nitrogen. The degree of nitration determines the solubility and flammability of the final product.

More From Britannica

major industrial polymers: Cellulose nitrate

Highly nitrated cellulose—i.e., nitrocellulose containing more than approximately 12.5 percent nitrogen—will dry to a fluffy white substance known variously as pyrocellulose and guncotton. Guncotton is unstable to heat, and even carefully prepared samples will ignite on a brief heating to temperatures in excess of 150 °C (300 °F). Guncotton is employed in gunpowders, solid rocket propellants, and explosives. Moderately nitrated cellulose (containing approximately 10.5 to 12.5 percent nitrogen) is also flammable, though less violently so than guncotton, and is soluble in alcohols and ethers. Nitrocellulose of this type, once referred to by various names such as pyroxylin, xyloidin, and collodion cotton, is employed as a film-forming agent in solvent-based paints, protective coatings, and fingernail polishes.

In the commercial manufacture of nitrocellulose, wood pulp is the primary source of cellulose. Cellulose sheet and nitrating acids are fed into a reacting vessel, where nitration proceeds until the acids have been centrifuged from the nitrated product. Remaining acid is removed by washing the nitrocellulose slurry in water and boiling it in a caustic solution. The product is often treated with various stabilizers to reduce degradation under exposure to light and heat. In order to reduce the likelihood of combustion, nitrocellulose is usually stored and transported in water or alcohol.

Chronology of development and use

In 1833 Henry Braconnot, director of the Botanic Garden in Nancy, France, treated potato starch, sawdust, and cotton with nitric acid. Braconnot found that this material, which he called “xyloidine,” was soluble in wood vinegar, and he attempted to make coatings, films, and shaped articles of it. In 1838 another French chemist, Théophile-Jules Pelouze, discovered that paper or cardboard could be made violently flammable by dipping it in concentrated nitric acid; Pelouze named his new material “pyroxyline.” Christian Friedrich Schönbein, a Swiss chemist, was able to increase the degree of nitration, and therefore the flammability of the product, by dipping cotton in a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids. In 1846 he announced the discovery of this revolutionary explosive substance, which became known as guncotton, and acquired patents in Britain and the United States. Schönbein also described the dissolution of moderately nitrated cellulose in ether and ethyl alcohol to produce a syrupy fluid that dried to a transparent film; mixtures of this composition eventually found use as collodion, employed through the 19th century as a photographic carrier and antiseptic wound sealant.

Guncotton did not come into use as an ingredient of gunpowder until the 1860s. The early history of its use was punctuated by many disastrous explosions, caused partly by the failure to appreciate that nitrocellulose is an unstable material and is subject to catalytic decomposition caused by its own decomposition products. In 1868 English chemist Sir Frederick Augustus Abel showed that the methods then prevalent for washing nitrocellulose after nitration were inadequate and that the residual acid was causing instability. In the 1880s French engineer Paul Vieille added special stabilizers to nitrocellulose to neutralize the catalytically active decomposition products; the first stable and reliable propellant, smokeless powder, resulted from his work and became the main form of gunpowder.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

Nitrated cellulose retains its threadlike shape even in solution, and, in the 19th century, methods were devised to spin nitrocellulose into fibres and then convert them back into cellulose. These efforts culminated in 1891 with the introduction of “Chardonnet silk,” the first commercially produced artificial fibre and a type of rayon, by the French chemist Hilaire Bernigaud, comte de Chardonnet. In 1869 American inventor John W. Hyatt mixed solid pyroxylin and camphor to produce the first commercially successful plastic, known as celluloid, which he patented the next year. After World War I nitrocellulose was employed in paints for the booming auto industry. Although nitrocellulose coatings are no longer employed on a massive scale, owing to restrictions on the use of products that contain volatile organic compounds, nitrocellulose continues to be used as a film-forming polymer in certain specialty coatings.