Cordite

[not verified in body] The hot gases produced by burning gunpowder or cordite generate sufficient pressure to propel a bullet or shell to its target, but not so quickly as to routinely destroy the barrel of the gun.

[3] Production ceased in the United Kingdom around the end of the 20th century, with the closure of the last of the World War II cordite factories, ROF Bishopton.

Gunpowder, an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate (also known as saltpeter), was the original propellant employed in firearms and fireworks.

With the 19th-century development of various "nitro explosives", based on the reaction of nitric acid mixtures on materials such as cellulose and glycerin, a search began for a replacement for gunpowder.

[5][6][7] In 1882, the Explosive Company of Stowmarket introduced EC Powder, which contained nitro-cotton and nitrates of potassium and barium in a grain gelatinised by ether alcohol.

It was made out of collodion (nitrocellulose dissolved in ethanol and ether), resulting in a plastic colloidal substance which was rolled into very thin sheets, then dried and cut up into small flakes.

[10] The following year, 1887, Alfred Nobel invented and patented a smokeless propellant he called Ballistite.

Using acetone as a solvent, it was extruded as spaghetti-like rods initially called "cord powder" or "the Committee's modification of Ballistite", but this was swiftly abbreviated to "Cordite".

Imperial Chemical Industries's (ICI) World War II double-base AN formulation also had a much lower temperature, but it lacked the flash reduction properties of N and NQ triple-base propellants.

[citation needed] The original Abel-Dewar formulation was soon superseded, as it caused excessive gun barrel erosion.

[citation needed] The composition of cordite was changed to 65% guncotton, 30% nitroglycerin (keeping 5% petroleum jelly), and 0.8% acetone shortly after the end of the Second Boer War.

[17] During World War I, acetone was in short supply in Great Britain, and a new experimental form was developed for use by the Royal Navy.

While a lecturer at Manchester University Weizmann discovered how to use bacterial fermentation to produce large quantities of many desired substances.

Weizmann transferred the rights to the manufacture of acetone to the Commercial Solvents Corporation in exchange for royalties.

[citation needed] Research on solvent-free Cordite RDB technologically extremely similar to ballistite continued primarily on the addition of stabilizers, which was based on German RP C/12 propellant featuring significant amounts of centralite (Called "carbamite" in British parlance) and led to the type commonly used in World War II as the main naval propellant.

[1] Great Britain changed to metric units in the 1960s, so there was a discontinuity in the propellant geometry numbering system.

[citation needed] An important development during World War II was the addition of another explosive, nitroguanidine, to the mixture to form triple-base propellant or Cordite N and NQ.

[citation needed] N and NQ were also issued in limited amounts to ammunitions used by the British 25-pdr and 5.5-inch land-based artillery pieces.

A smaller site at Girvan, South Ayrshire, now occupied by Grant's distillery, produced cordite and TNT.

[24] ICI ran a similar works at Deer Park (which was also confusingly known as Ardeer after the adjacent suburb) near Melbourne in Australia and in South Africa.

[citation needed] Canadian Explosives Limited was formed in 1910 to produce rifle cordite, at its Beloeil factory, for the Quebec Arsenal.

By November 1915 production had been expanded to produce 350,000 lb (159,000 kg) of cordite per month for the Imperial Munitions Board.

Cordite factories typically employed women (Cook 2006) who put their lives at risk as they packed the shells.

[27] In 1910, Canadian Explosives Limited produced 3,000 lb (1,362 kg) of rifle cordite per month at its Beloeil factory, for the Quebec Arsenal.

[citation needed] As noted above, in addition to its own facilities, the British Government had ICI Nobel set up a number of Agency Factories producing cordite in Scotland, Australia, Canada and South Africa.