Power Labs left a nifty guild on how to make nitrocellulose, and here I'm writing some scaled calculations that may prove useful later.
For the initial ingredients:
98% Concentrated Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4)(l)
70% Concentrated Nitric Acid (HNO3)(aq)
Pure Cotton (90% Cellulose, (C6H10O5)(s)
Acetone (CH3COCH3)(l)
Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3)(s)
Distilled Water
Diphenylamine (C12H11N)(s)
Now, to create the hexanitrate, Powerlabs indicates that you need 5ml acid mixture for every .5 g of cotton. So, for my purposes, 10ml Acid mixture will nitrate 1g of cotton. Hexanitrate uses 35% HNO3 / 65% H2SO4 (by volume) as the acid mixture.
To keep this simple, the acid + cotton mixture is:
1g Cotton
3.5ml HNO3 (98% Concentration)
6.5ml H2So4 (70% Concentration)
After the desired amount of Acid mixture and cotton is added, the solution must nitrate for 10 minutes never exceeding the temperature of 70o Celsius otherwise the solution will have 'a runaway nitration'. After the nitration, the cotton is washed in Sodium Bicarbonate, then in distilled water until the water used to wash is neutral. During the third wash, Diphenylamine should be added to get rid of the rest of the acidic content in the hexanitrate. When the water used to wash the Hexanitrate is neutral, take the hexanitrate and dissolve it in Acetone. After the acetone vaporizes, the Hexanitrate should be stored underneath water untill it is ready to be used.
20g Cotton
70ml HNO3 (98% Concentration)
130ml H2So4 (70% Concentration)
2ml Diphenylamine (C12H11N)
400ml Acetone (CH3COCH3)(l)
400ml Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3)(s)
2 liters Distilled Water
Source: PowerLabs
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