August 29th marks the passing of German chemist Christian Schönbein. Schönbein was experimenting in his kitchen one day and accidentally spilled a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acid. He cleaned up the spill with his wife's cotton apron, rinsed it off and hung it near the stove to dry. He was surprised when the apron spontaneously ignited and burned rapidly away. He discovered he had created a substance called nitrocellulose or gun cotton.
Schönbein later collaborated with Rudolf Böttger, who had independently discovered the same reaction that same year to refine the process only to lose publishing priority to a third chemist, F. J. Otto. Gun cotton could be ground into a powder that was a smokeless alternative to gunpowder. Several military powers attempted to mass produce gun cotton, but the material was too unstable to work with until James Dewar and Frederick Abel created the mixture that produced cordite.
You can make your own nitrocellulose and find out what else occurred on this day in science history.
Schönbein later collaborated with Rudolf Böttger, who had independently discovered the same reaction that same year to refine the process only to lose publishing priority to a third chemist, F. J. Otto. Gun cotton could be ground into a powder that was a smokeless alternative to gunpowder. Several military powers attempted to mass produce gun cotton, but the material was too unstable to work with until James Dewar and Frederick Abel created the mixture that produced cordite.
You can make your own nitrocellulose and find out what else occurred on this day in science history.
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