How to Make Gunpowder: 8 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow /3/3b/Make Gunpowder Step 1.360p.mp4 Look for "stump remover" in garden stores. Saltpeter is often sold under this name. You may also find it labeled as saltpeter, niter, or potassium nitrate. [2] Buy it online. If you do a search for saltpeter, you'll get plenty of results, and you can easily have a bottle delivered to you. Make it yourself out of a cold pack. Cold packs which can be bought for a few dollars to help with sore muscles contain sodium nitrate and water, and can be used to make saltpeter. Make it with urine. This is definitely the most difficult way to source saltpeter, but some black powder enthusiasts prefer to make their powder entirely from scratch. To do so, one process is to fill a drum with manure affixed with a drain, valve, and filter at the bottom. Urinate into it, then top it off with water. After about 10 months, dry it out on trays. [3] 2 Obtain charcoal.

You can use standard charcoal that you buy to cook with your grill, which you'll need to grind to a fine powder. If you're a purist, make your own charcoal by filling a metal drum with 3-inch pieces of willow or another wood, then placing the drum in a bonfire with a loose lid on top (to allow for airflow). Keep the bonfire piping hot for 4-6 hours, then open the drum. The wood will have charred into fine pieces of homemade charcoal, perfect for use in gunpowder. 11.9% sulfur 3 Mix the ingredients together. Moistening the powders before mixing is the safest but not only procedure.Place them all in the mortar, moisten for safety, and grind them together with the pestle for 10 minutes or longer. If you're using a ball mill, mill the charcoal and sulfur together for 4 hours first, then add the saltpeter and mill the mixture for another 24 hours. /5/5f/Make Gunpowder Step 6.360p.mp4 Be extremely careful around the black powder once it has been mixed.

Do not smoke or light a flame anywhere close to the powder, and keep it away from heat. 4 Consider adding water. Some say adding up to 8% water can improve the gunpowder's burning. Continue mixing the gunpowder, adding water in small increments until the gunpowder is the texture of thick clay. Form it into a ball when you're finished. /7/76/Make Gunpowder Step 7.360p.mp4 If you mix the gunpowder with water, you'll need to corn the gunpowder, or break it up into small pieces. Run the gunpowder ball through a kitchen sieve to break it into small pieces, then let the pieces dry out on a piece of paper. Again, be extremely careful around the gunpowder. Exercise caution at every stage. 5 Store the black powder safely. Place the black powder in a special container designed for gunpowder. Consider storing it in a fireproof box in a shed or another area outside your home. In any case, store the black powder in a stable area where it will not come into contact with a flame or be exposed to high temperatures.

United Nuclear - Black Powder Manufacture Supplying the science hobbyist, industry, government, schools & universities since 1998. "We specialize in small orders" Black Powder Manufacture Black Powder (Gunpowder) is the backbone of pyrotechnics. Black Powder is the main ingredient in a variety of firework and rocket formulas. Black Powder Basics Black Powder, also known as Gunpowder, is produced in large quantities commercially and sold in small 1 pound containers, mainly for use in antique Black Powder guns. It is also normally sold in different granulations which indicate how fine the Black Powder is granulated by how many "F's" they put on the container. Coarse granulations are called "FG or FFG" (aka "1Fg" and "2Fg"). Finer granulations are "FFFg and "FFFFg" (aka 3Fg and 4Fg). The more "F's", the finer the Black Powder... and the finer the Black Powder is, the faster it burns. Small (fine) granulations burn faster and are used in small bore guns, where larger (coarser) granulations, are used for larger bore guns & cannons...

and for launching Aerial Firework Shells out of mortars. Using a finer granulation for these jobs puts too much strain on the gun (or shell or mortar) because the powder burns much faster and creates a fast pressure increase that could damage whatever you're trying to launch, or the gun/mortar itself. Coarser, granulated Black Powder that is used in mortars to launch shells, or in Roman Candles to shoot out stars, is sometimes called "Lift Powder". When Black Powder isn't granulated and is in a super fine powder state (similar to that of Talcum Powder) it is called "Meal Powder". Smokeless Powder is not to be confused with Black Powder. Smokeless Powder is actually Nitrocellulose, and cannot be used in place of Black Powder. Keep in mind that Black Powder, Gunpowder, Lift Powder, Grain Powder, and Meal Powder are basically all the same material. As far as fireworks are concerned, Black Powder is used both in its finely powdered form (Meal Powder) for coating starts and for mixing in other pyrotechnic formulas, and in its granulated form (Lift Powder) for launching shells out of a mortar, or stars out of a Roman Candle.

The formula for Black Powder is 75% Potassium Nitrate, 15% Charcoal, and 10% Sulfur... and like all chemical formulas, it is measured by weight only. However, you just can't mix these chemicals together and expect to produce a well functioning Black Powder mix. The mixing process for Black Powder is just as important as the formula. Black Powder MUST be made in a Ball Mill to work properly. A Ball Mill is a rotating drum with dozens of lead balls inside. The 3 chemicals are loaded into the Ball Mill, along with the lead balls, sealed shut and allowed to rotate for anywhere between 1 hour and 24 hours. As the Ball Mill rotates, the lead balls will crush the chemicals together, forcing some of the Potassium Nitrate into the pores of the Charcoal and Sulfur. At the same time, the entire mass will be reduced to a super fine powder. The longer the Ball Mill runs, the stronger the Black Powder will be. A general rule of thumb for all pyrotechnic mixtures is " the finer the powder is, the faster it will burn ". ONLY lead balls can be used in a Ball Mill as they are completely non-sparking.

ONLY Black Powder can be mixed in a Ball Mill. Other pyrotechnic mixtures such as Flash Powder, etc. CAN NOT, as they are too sensitive and will explode. Individual chemicals however, can also be Ball Milled into a fine powder, but the mill must be cleaned before this is done. If you are a do-it-yourself type of person, you can build your own Ball Mill. For those that don't want to go through the hassle of building one from scratch, Ball Mills, complete with hardened lead balls are available from us. They can be found by Clicking Here . Once the mill has run for a while, it can be opened and the lead balls separated from the fine Meal Powder. As we'll show you below, this Meal Powder can now be used to make all the other forms of Black Powder for use in fireworks. Black Powder vs. Flash Powder A lot of people ask which is stronger, Black Powder or Flash Powder... or if Black Powder can be used in Salutes (exploding fireworks). In short, there is no comparison. Flash Powder is a high explosive, a shattering explosive.

It converts to a gas so fast, that objects near it, and containers that hold it cannot move out of they way (or vent) fast enough to release this gas so they are destroyed into fragments. Black Powder is a low explosive, a heaving explosive. It converts to gas much more slowly than Flash Powder, and generally pushes things as opposed to fragmenting them. If Black Powder is used in a small Salute like an M-80, it will just make a loud "pop", and push out the end plugs. Flash Powder in an M-80 will make a loud explosion and fragment the tube into small pieces. Flash Powder burns so much faster than Black Powder that in larger Salutes, it doesn't even matter if you've got end plugs on the tube at all, it will still detonate and fragment the Salute, even with 2 open ends. You can NEVER substitute Flash Powder for Black Powder or vice-versa. If you were to use Flash Powder to launch a shell out of a tube, or a bullet out of a gun, it would barely move the shell or bullet, and completely destroy the mortar or gun, most probably killing the operator.

Manufacture You will need 3 chemicals to make Black Powder, they are: Potassium Nitrate, Sulfur and Charcoal. Stay away from very low grade materials like "Dusting Sulfur" and Bar-B-Que Charcoal Briquettes. The Charcoal you use in a BBQ (Bar-B-Que Charcoal Briquettes) is not pure Charcoal. It contains other materials and chemicals that are designed to keep the material burning evenly and for a long time, but it will make very poor Black Powder. If you use low quality chemicals, it will yield a low quality or non functional Black Powder. The sale of common oxidizers (like Potassium Nitrate) are being increasingly regulated by the U.S. Government and they are becoming very difficult to find. Many customers report that they have used 'Tree Stump Remover', which apparently is almost pure Potassium Nitrate... and is available in most hardware or garden supply stores. The following is the standard formula for Black Powder: Black Powder 20 grams A step-by-step procedure is outlined below....

Open the lid to your Ball Mill and add the following: 150 grams of Potassium Nitrate, 30 grams of Charcoal Powder, and 20 grams of Sulfur ( if your lead balls are not already in the tumbling barrel, go ahead and put them in now ). Remember that ONLY lead balls can be used because they are completely non-sparking. When complete, this will make 200 grams of Black Powder ( a little under 1/2 pound ). You can make larger or smaller batches, just keep the percentages of all the chemicals the same. You MUST use an accurate scale to weigh your chemicals, preferably one that is accurate to 1/10th of a gram. If you do not have access to an accurate scale, you can find some for sale on our site here . With all 3 chemicals and the lead balls inside, put the lid on the tumbling barrel and seal it, then set it in the Mill. Turn on your Ball Mill and let it rotate for 2 to 4 hours. As the Ball Mill rotates, the lead balls will crush the chemicals together and reduce them into a super fine powder. The longer you let it grind, the stronger your Black Powder will be.

Let the Ball Mill do its grinding in an uninhabited area, not in a place like your bedroom. Although the chance of accidental ignition is very remote, it is wise to put your mill in the garage, or better yet, outside to do its work. At the end of a couple of hours stop the mill. Lay out a sheet of paper ( newspaper will work fine ). Open the lid to the barrel, and dump the entire contents ( lead balls and all ) into a spaghetti strainer over your sheet of paper. The strainer will catch the lead balls and with a little shaking, all the Black Powder will filter through onto your paper sheet. When Black Powder is in a fine "dust-like" state like this, it is called "Meal Powder". The Meal Powder you just made can now be used as-is in a variety of formulas and projects. By adding a little water and Dextrin to it, you can easily make Black Match Fuse or Quickmatch. Lifting Powder There are some applications where very fine Black Powder ( Meal Powder ) will not work well. If you're going to use your Black Powder to launch shells out of a mortar, or for small cannons, it will have to be granulated first.

Black Powder that is granulated and used for launching shells and salutes is called "Lifting Powder". The procedure for making lifting powder is easy, but it sometimes takes a few tries to get it perfect. Basically all we're going to do is to add a little of a water soluble glue ( Dextrin ) to the Meal Powder, mix it well, get it a little damp, and push it through the spaghetti strainer again. This will produce small granules of Black Powder perfect for launching shells or anything else. The whole trick to this is not to get the mixture too wet, or it will become gooey and just turn into a big mess. To convert your Meal Powder into Lifting Powder, take 100 grams of Meal Powder and mix in 10 grams of dextrin. A good way to mix them is to put the mixture in a plastic container with a snap-on lid and shake well. Pour the powder through the spaghetti strainer again, this will break up any lumps in the dextrin. Now place the Meal Powder/Dextrin mix back in your plastic container and add just a little water. This is where experience really pays off. The idea here it to get the mixture damp and not wet.

What can be deceiving is that you're adding water to a very fine powder, so it's going to take several minutes of mixing just to get the powder to begin to absorb any water at all. Add just a little water at a time, mixing thoroughly. As the powder begins to take in water, it will turn a bit darker in color. You want the mixture to be damp enough to where if you take a handful of it and squeeze it tightly, it will just begin stick together. You do not want to get it too wet. If you do, it will not go through the spaghetti strainer and will just clump up on the bottom, or not go through the holes at all. If disaster strikes and you have added too much water, you can always just add some plain Meal Powder to the mix to dry it out. Just FYI, adding the water also increases the strength of the Black Powder by allowing some of the Potassium Nitrate to dissolve and be absorbed into the pores of the charcoal particles. Once the mixture is damp, lay out another sheet of newspaper and dump the mixture into the spaghetti strainer.

Using a wooden or plastic spoon ( or your hands if you don't mind getting messy ), rub the mixture through the screen allowing the granules to fall onto the newspaper below. The Lift Powder you're making will have to dry for a few days before it can be used, so make sure to spread it around on the newspaper so it will dry more quickly. If your mixture isn't all going through the screen, or is sticking on the bottom, chances are it's too wet. Take the mixture out of the strainer and mix in some plain dry Meal Powder and try again. If the mixture is going through easily, but isn't really making granules, it might be a bit too dry. Take the mixture out of the strainer and add a small amount of water, mix well and try again. Black Powder Recipes ubub The Recipe for Black Powder As is generally known to many people, black powder is a mixture of saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur. To disappoint all of you who think, in the following paper I'm going to give away an optimum recipe with the best possible performance, I state here once and for all: The mixture of the three ingredients is of little importance.

It is the method of making the charcoal that counts, as I will prove with this chapter. But back to the black powder recipe: You can change it over a wide range, and hardly notice any difference between performances. That explains why most of the historic recipes differ significantly. On the other hand, it is hard to find a historic recipe on how to char the coal, since that usually was a state secret. By the way, even a mixture of saltpeter and charcoal without sulfur explodes remarkably well. However, a mixture of saltpeter and sulfur, without charcoal, doesn't burn at all. The latter fact puzzled the chemists throughout the centuries, because sulfur alone burns pretty well and saltpeter generally accelerates all sorts of fires. (Look this movie) Note: Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon (C) as most authors purport. Such a pure charcoal would require a charring temperature of at least 1,500 °C! And a black powder mixed with it would probably burn like the head of a matchstick, at best. As I'm explaining in my charcoal chapter, the formula of charcoal may be best described as C7H4O.

With this and the following chemical equations we'll see why there won't be an explicit, best mixture of black powder: Depending on the portion of charcoal, its carbon produces alternatively carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide or a mix of both. To these you'll have to add the water vapor plus nitrogen, released from the saltpeter. So the sum of all the gases is nearly the same on all recipes. Indeed, the following three dimensional graph of the performance of different black powder recipes reveals a flat top over wide range of recipes. A recipe without sulfur yields only little less energy (Joule/g). But its advantage lies in its little smoke produced. Its fog then consists of potassium carbonate (potash). Unfortunately its ignition temperature is 100 °C higher than usual. For cap lock arms that is no problem, but it is a nuisance to flint and match lock sportsmen.

Here is the chemical equation for a regular black powder containing sulfur: 1) Reasonable recipes for mixing blackpowder are; A good standard black powder:..100 parts saltpeter + 18 parts coal + 16 parts sulfur A powder without sulfur: ............100 parts saltpeter + 24 parts coal As you may have noticed, I always give powder recipes on the basis of 100 parts saltpeter! Then, with the three ingredients, it leaves only two variables which can be compared or drawn on graphs easily. For the creation of the following graph showing the performance of black powder, I tested dozens of recipes and fired some hundred shots. The black powder samples were always mixed from saltpeter and sulfur supplied by the chemical industry. The charcoal I made from the wood of a willow tree, in fact from its young, debarked branches of approximately 3 to 4 cm diameter, charred in a tin can at 400 °C until nearly smokefree. Fig. 1: The performance of different powder recipes The muzzle energy was determined by the measurement of the bullet velocity, one meter ahead of the muzzle of a three band Enfield rifle, cal.

58 (14.7 mm) and a patched round ball of 17.3 g lead. The velocity was measured by a commercially available chronograph. With each recipe there were three shots fired and from these the median was taken. The load was exactly 2.00 g black powder. Then the muzzle energy was calculated as: Energy (Joule) = Mass of the ball (kg) • velocity2 (m/s)2 3) as given on the y-axis of the diagram Historical black powder recipes The first written recipe comes from Roger Bacon, a British monk and professor of philosophy at the university of Paris, in his "Opus Tertiary" (1264-1268),. There he wrote "As is widely known ..... " and then he gives the recipe. Note, he didn't claim the invention for himself and, therefore, he is definitely not the inventor. His recipe is: Sed tamen 7 Partes Salpetrae, 5 Partes Coruli et 5 Partes Sulphuris et sic facies tonitrum et coruscationem, sic scias artificium.

Translated: Take 7 parts of saltpeter, 5 parts of hazelnut (-charcoal) and 5 parts sulfur and that makes thunder and flash if you know the art. And later on in his text, he describes what bad boys were doing with it at night: - terrifiying their innocent neighborhood. They rolled paper to a tube, about the size of a thumb, filled it with powder, closed both ends with a piece of iron wire and then set it on fire". He didn't reveal exactly how the charge was ignited. By a fuse? On the basis of 100 parts of saltpeter, Bacons recipe is: 100 p Saltpeter, 71 p coal, 71 p sulfur. When tested, Bacons powder burned very slowly. I tested it on a handgonne (not a handgun). It didn't even propel the ball out of the barrel. All the pressure escaped through the touch hole. So I assumed, Bacon as an Englishman measured his parts by volume and not by weight as we continental Europeans are used to do. Even today, all English give their cooking recipes in cups and spoons and not by weight.

Did Bacon actually mean parts by volume (?), so his recipe would be by weight: 100 p Saltpeter + 27 p Coal + 45 p Sulfur Fig 2: And here is what I shot with Bacons recipe by volume: 3 shots bench-rest, at 25 meters with a muzzle loader pistol of cal. 38. Here are some other local recipes, used historically : Saltpeter All About Gunpowder All About Gunpowder Home / History / Explosives / All About Gunpowder Early history and the use of gunpowder in guns Although it is commonly stated that gunpowder was invented by the Chinese, it is certainly more true to state that it is a substance whose origins are lost in the mists of time, and that it has been subject to a series of technical improvements over the centuries to meet the requirements of the day. The Chinese don’t seem to have been acquainted with guns because, according to Brock, they were astonished by their first sight of artillery on visiting Portuguese ships at Canton in 1520.

Names associated with the early history of gunpowder include Berthold Schwarz, a thirteenth century Franciscan monk, who is reputed to have invented the principle of the gun in about 1320, and friar Roger Bacon, born at Ilchester, Somerset, in 1214. He left cryptic writings which have been translated to show the use of sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal mixtures to produce explosions and sparks. However, his proportions of 7 parts saltpetre, 5 parts charcoal and 5 parts sulphur would have been no more powerful than the fizz of a Roman candle firework, and I don’t see how he could have made an explosion with it. My childhood hobby was making fireworks, and I can vouch for the difficulty of making a good bang with such crude mixtures. They will, however, propel a projectile from a gun barrel, and guns were used at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The crude ingredients would have been mixed on the battlefield because, otherwise, the three ingredients would have partially separated out during a bumpy journey. In those days it wasn’t possible to make a really strong gun barrel.

The blast furnace, with its readily available supply of molten metal for casting, was not invented until Tudor times. Iron, which was available in relatively small quantities, was made in a bloomery furnace, which didn’t melt the metal, but produced an impure lump, weighing a few pounds, which had to be hammered into bars, squeezing the impurities out. The early guns were made very like wooden barrels, with bars welded together by hammering, all held in place with metal strengthening hoops. They had large bores so that they could fire heavy projectiles at relatively low speed. The development of gunpowder as we know it today would have depended upon the parallel developments in metallurgy. Crude mixtures of the three ingredients are, today, only used for pyrotechnics. Very good rockets can be made using 13 parts saltpetre, 2 parts sulphur, 2.5 parts fine charcoal and 2.5 parts coarse charcoal, compressed in a stout tube around a former which gives a hollow cavity up the centre, and confined with a clay orifice to allow the pressure to build up. The composition of proper gunpowder developed with time.

Baptista Porta reached approximately the modern proportions in 1515. Typically, European manufacturers used saltpetre 75 parts, sulphur 12.5 parts and charcoal 12.5 parts, all, of course, by weight. The ingredients would have been of high purity, and the charcoal would have been obtained from alder, dogwood or willow, although charred straw was used for brown gunpowder. Sodium nitrate, “Chile saltpetre”, was sometimes used instead of potassium nitrate. It was cheaper than saltpetre, and made a slightly more powerful product, although it tended to absorb moisture from the air. It was used to blast the Suez Canal. To understand the manufacture of gunpowder it is necessary to consider the factors which favour rapid combustion. The three ingredients are solid, relying on each other to supply fuel and oxygen. Clearly, the finer the particle sizes of the three ingredients, and the closer they are to each other, the better the mixture will function.

That is why modern gunpowder undergoes the process of incorporation in a mill, like the 18th-century one at Chart Mills, or the 20th-century one at the Oare Gunpowder Works, both in Faversham. This process reduces the ingredients to a very small particle size. The resulting ‘mill cake’ is then broken up into chunks before it is pressed, typically in an hydraulic press with a pressure of about 70 tons per square foot, though originally screw presses similar to those still used by bookbinders were used. This compacts the particles, resulting in “press cake”, about five eighths of an inch thick, which has a density of about 1.7 times that of water when dried. There is an optimum density, the rate of combustion decreasing beyond that point. Having obtained this material, it is necessary to regulate the speed of combustion for various purposes. This is done by converting it into granules. When gunpowder burns, it does so from the surface, the flame rapidly propagating throughout the particle. It is a physical fact that the larger a particle is, the smaller its surface area will be compared with its mass (weight).

For example, a sugar cube of 1cm side has an area of six square cm. If eight cubes are stacked to make a large cube with 2cm sides, its area will be 24 square cm, while it weighs eight times as much. The ratio of area to volume is 6 for the single cube, but only 3 for the big cube. A cube of gunpowder the size of a sugar lump would, therefore, burn roughly twice as fast as a cube with sides twice as long. From the press-house the “press cake” is taken to the corning house, where the powder is automatically sieved into grains of different sizes, according to the application. Next, it goes to the dusting house, where powder dust is removed by centrifugal force in “reels”, gauze-covered drums revolving in sealed housings. The dust can be recycled. The powder is then taken to the glazing house, to be polished in revolving drums, and glazed by the addition of graphite powder. This makes the particles less likely to absorb damaging moisture. It also makes them slippery so that they easily run into all the space into which they are put.

Finally they are dried in “stoves” at 40 deg C till their moisture content is 1% - just enough to prevent them disintegrating into useless powder dust. Typical gunpowder looks like black granulated sugar. It is very easily ignited by a spark, but it won’t burn if it gets damp. It is relatively insensitive to mechanical shock. Gunpowder made by the corning process wasn’t any use for the very large and long range guns which were used in the second half of the 19th century. The use of good quality wrought iron and steel, the introduction of the principle of loading from the breech end of a gun, instead of down the muzzle, and the introduction of rifling, transformed gunnery, and hence required new types of gunpowder. At the time of Waterloo, cannons still used cannon balls, and they had very limited accuracy. Using a cannon was very much like playing snooker, for the gunner used ricochet effects to bounce the cannon ball along a line of defence, killing as many people as he could. Much effort went into designing fortifications to minimise this effect, which resulted in forts having complicated polygonal shapes.

All this ended with the introduction of rifling in cannons, from which an elongated projectile was fired spinning like a top. These flew much trued than cannon balls, and it was possible to hit targets at long range. However, their direction of bounce was unpredictable. Things changed about the time of the Crimean war (1854-56), when the French used rifled guns fired from armoured floating batteries. In 1858 they launched an ironclad warship, “Gloire”, mounting rifled guns, which threatened to make the British navy redundant. This caused a rush to re-arm with rifled muzzle loaders, which needed very large grained gunpowder. For these, the press cake was cut into strips, then into cubes, to form cubical or pebble powder. The sides of the cubes were usually 0.6 or 1.5 inches. Unfortunately, these gave a very rapid build-up of pressure, which accounts for the bottle shape of guns of that time, the breech having to be very thick to withstand the pressure. A certain General Rodman had a brainwave which enabled this problem to be overcome, as follows.

A prismatic moulded powder was made by pressing incorporated powder into moulds using hydraulic pressure. This gave prisms which would have a hollow cavity 0.4 inches across through the hexagonal block. Typically, each grain would be 1 inch high and 1.3 inches across. When these burned, the surface area on the outside would decrease as the combustion progressed, while the surface area of the internal cavity would increase. This caused a much more even rate of combustion than could be achieved for solid particles of powder. There were two grades, prismatic black, made with wood charcoal, and prismatic brown, using straw charcoal. It was possible to regulate the pressure much more evenly as the projectile went up the barrel using prismatic powder. The idea was first adopted by Russia in 1860, the British, as usual, being the last to take it up. The same principles are employed today for solid fuel rockets. Gunpowder will, in a confined space, build up a pressure of about 42 tons per square inch. The shock wave associated with the explosion can make the figure even higher.

Typically, for a rifled breech loader gun of ten inches diameter, 250lb of gunpowder would be used to fire its 500 lb shell. A rifled muzzle loader would use about half that charge. Guncotton was invented in 1846, was almost five times as powerful as gunpowder, and didn’t produce the dense clouds of smoke associated with the earlier explosive. In simple terms it is cotton wool steeped in a mixture of sulphuric and nitric acid. The first guncotton factory in the world opened at the Marsh Works, an existing gunpowder factory in Faversham, in 1847. However, the sophisticated manufacturing process was imperfectly understood and within a few months there was a very serious explosion which resulted in over 20 fatalities. Manufacture of the product in Faversham then ceased till 1873 when it was resumed on a different site at Uplees.

It was only a matter of time before gunpowder became redundant for gunnery, and it was displaced by cordite, which is a mixture of nitro-glycerine, guncotton and petroleum jelly, about the end of the 19th century, although some Belgian forts still used gunpowder in 1914. Use of gunpowder for blasting rock Breaking rock in mines and quarries was a very laborious. Bronze Age man used antler picks to hack his way along mineral veins in the old copper mines on the Great Orme in North Wales. In Tudor times, hammers and wedges were used to break new ground, assisted by the process of fire setting. This involved lighting a fire against the rock surface to heat it, followed by rapid quenching with water or vinegar. The state of the underground workings can only be imagined, with the smoke that would have been generated by the fires making the tunnels almost unbearable. Quicklime was also used. It was put into holes drilled in the rock, followed by water.

The hole would have been rammed tight with clay, and the miner would hope that the expansion of the lime as it hydrated would break the rock, rather than just push the clay plug out. Gunpowder seems to have been introduced for mining by Dutchmen in the 17th century. Miners would hand-bore holes using drills and hammers, usually up to two feet deep and about one inch across. These would then be charged with powder, and a long thin metal “pricker” would be passed down the hole, communicating with the main charge. The hole would then be rammed with clay, the pricker would be pulled out, and lengths of straw or reed full of fine powder would be put down the resulting narrow hole to act as fuse. Touch paper, which is paper soaked in saltpetre, would be fixed to the end of the straw, then the miner would light it and run. It was a much more effective way of mining than the old method, which was discontinued. This rather dangerous method continued until about 1870, when safety fuse was introduced. This consisted of a tarred rope with a core of powdered gunpowder.

It burned at a fixed rate, which would give the miner a good chance of getting away. Prior to that, it was not unusual for a charge to explode prematurely, blowing the miner’s eye out, or worse. Hand boring continued for about 300 years, but rock drills were introduced about 1890, reducing the labour considerably. However, they caused a lot of dust which the miner would inhale. Many died from silicosis, and the early drills were called widow makers. It was thought that the effects of dust could be minimised by growing beards to trap it. That explains why many of the old miners had magnificent specimens on their chins. The problem was not overcome until drills which used a jet of water to keep the holes wet were introduced. Unfortunately for the gunpowder industry, dynamite and similar explosives proved to be a much more effective at breaking rock. They explode with great violence, giving a much more powerful shockwave than gunpowder does. A stick of dynamite on a railway line would probably cut the metal, while gunpowder would do little damage.

However, it is the relative gentleness of gunpowder which causes it still to be used where intact blocks of rock are needed, as in the state quarrying industry. Gunpowder was used in coal mining, but it suffered from the severe disadvantage that it could set fire to methane, or fire damp, which occurred in the mines. This would cause catastrophic explosions. A material called Bobbinite was permitted for use in coal mines until 1931. It included a material called Maizite, which looked like rice. That component reduced the risk of igniting gas. They were shaped like long cotton reels so that a shot hole could be charged and a fuse passed down the middle. They were packed in special brown paper, four to a pack. Presumably that was the normal charge for a shot hole. Pyrotechnics It is not my intention to devote these pages to a description of the uses of gunpowder in pyrotechnics. Suffice it to say that gunpowder still has an honoured place in that branch of the arts.

Although it was the explosive used in bangers and the like, it has been largely superseded in that role by more powerful flash powders, which use metals such as magnesium or aluminium as fuel. However, it is used for lifting charges in mortars, as used to fire shells at larger displays, and for bursting charges in shells and rockets. It also occurs in various pyrotechnic mixtures. The real problem with gunpowder is that it contains sulphur. That material gives very friction-sensitive mixtures with some other firework components, particularly those for producing colour. It is courting death to mix them together. Certainly, weed killer and sulphur is extremely hazardous. All firework factories have a rigid separation between areas for mixtures containing sulphur and those that don’t. Article reproduced by kind permission of Michael Baldwin. References NB The first titles are on sale at the Fleur de Lis Heritge Centre in Faversham, which also stocks a wide range of other books on the history of explosives.

The Faversham Gunpowder Industry and its Development, Arthur Percival, Faversham Society, Faversham Papers No 4 (1986) Gunpowder: Terminology and Incorporation, Edward Patterson, Faversham Society, Faversham Papers No 27 (1986) Oare Gunpowder Works, Wayne Cocroft, Faversham Society, Faversham Papers No 39 (1994) Gunpowder Manufacture in Faversham: Oare and Marsh Factories, Edward Patterson, Faversham Papers No 42 (1995) Black Powder Manufacture in Cumbria, Edward Patterson, Faversham Papers No 43 (1995) Guns, Gunpowder & Saltpetre, Ronald D Crozier, Faversham Papers No 58, Faversham Society (1997) A History of Fireworks, A. St. H. Brock, Harrap (1949). Chemistry as applied to the arts and manufactures, William Mackenzie, London, Circa 1885.

Chambers encyclopedia of universal knowledge, William and Robert Chambers, London and Edinburgh, (1890). Fireworks Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition, Lancaster, Rev. R., Chemical Publishing Co. Inc., New York (1992). ISBN 0-8206-0338-2 Front line Kent, Victor Smith, Buckland Press, 2001. ISBN 1-901509-64-8 The old gunpowder factory at Glynneath, Pritchard, T., Evans, J., and Johnson, S., Merthyr Tydfil and District Naturalists’ Society, (1985). Mining in the Lake Counties, Shaw, W.T., Dalesman Books (Clapham) (1983) ISBN 0 85206 2910. Gunpowder Works - Glossary of Terms Canals Gunpowder works were served by a network of narrow-gauge canals, rather than by metalled tracks - off which iron wheels might strike dangerous sparks Charcoal One of the three main ingredients of gunpowder.

A form of the element, Carbon, it burns readily and is used in explosives as a reducing agent Cooperage How to Make Black Powder or Gunpowder | Azareal's Weblog How to Make Black Powder or Gunpowder June 10, 2008 at 9:55 pm 33 comments Gunpowder or black powder is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter) that has been used since the 12th century for fireworks and later as a propellent and explosive in weapons. It isn’t particularly efficient or safe for use in weapons, plus it produces a lot of smoke, so black powder has largely been replaced for those purposes by other compositions (e.g., pyrodex, shown in the photo), but black powder still has its place in pyrotechnics and as a propellent for certain firearms. You should know how it is made for historical reasons if nothing else. As with my ammonium sulfide stink bomb , if you decide to try these instructions yourself, use proper safety precautions. Be advised that the main problem with black powder is its tendency to ignite from static electricity.

Keep this in mind and only use wooden or clay tools (e.g., wooden salad bowl). Store gunpowder in paper or cloth, never plastic (which may build up static). Black Powder or Gunpowder Ingredients The usual mixture consists of 75 parts potassium nitrate, 15 parts charcoal, and 10 parts sulfur. 75 g potassium nitrate ( KNO3 , saltpeter) 15 g charcoal (ideally from burning the wood of a willow or linden, but other sources work) 10 g sulfur distilled water Making the Black Powder There are different ways to do this. One is to mix the dry ingredients in a ball mill (like a rock tumbler) with lead balls (not steel! they can spark), run the ball mill about 2 hours, then filter the resulting black powder through a strainer so that the lead balls are retained in the strainer and the black powder is collected onto newspaper or cloth. The black powder is wrapped up and stored in a cool, dry place until use. Since not everyone has a ball mill, the most common way to make black powder yourself is to do this: Grind each ingredient separately until it is a very fine powder.

I recommend using a mortar and pestle for this, which you can get at any cooking store. If you are grinding each ingredient using the same bowl, rinse it out when you switch chemicals. (Traditionally you would add a little water or wine to dampen the ingredients and grind them all together at once, but that’s unnecessarily risky, in my opinion.) Boil your water. Put the potassium nitrate into the bowl. Add just enough boiling water to thoroughly wet it. Add the sulfur and charcoal. Stir the mixture for several minutes. It should be uniformly black. Allow the mixture to air dry. This is usually done outdoors on a warm, sunny day. Some people prefer to spread the mixture out onto newpaper to dry. Others mix in a bit of alcohol to speed the evaporation of the water. You don’t want to over-dry the black powder, since that will lower its effectiveness. When your black powder is dry, wrap it in paper or cloth and store it until use. This should be obvious, but don’t store it near heat or flame. If you make multiple batches of black powder, it’s not a great move to store it all packed together.

Black powder is used to produce a loud ‘bang’ in fireworks and as a propellent. Yes, it can explode, but so can a can of cola in your freezer. I’m not saying making it is risk-free or smart, just that black powder is mainly used for entertainment purposes, not destructive purposes. Now that you know how to make black powder, my next post will explain how to make a basic firework using it. Black Powder - PFRC Wiki Black Powder A long held tradition for first projects in pyrotechnics Contents Introduction def Gunpowder Black powder is a granular mixture of * a nitrate, typically potassium nitrate (KNO3), which supplies oxygen for the reaction; * charcoal, which provides carbon and other fuel for the reaction, simplified as carbon (C); * sulfur (S), which, while also a fuel, lowers the temperature of ignition and increases the speed of combustion. Recipe It is 75% potassium nitrate, 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur. It is often made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate in proportions of 60% nitrate, 20% charcoal and 20% sulfur.

A simple, commonly cited, chemical equation for the combustion of black powder is 2 KNO3 + S + 3 C → K2S + N2 + 3 CO2. A more accurate, but still simplified, equation is 10 KNO3 + 3 S + 8 C → 2 K2CO3 + 3 K2SO4 + 6 CO2 + 5 N2. The burning of gunpowder does not take place as a single reaction, however, and the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study's results showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities): 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate. 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water. Acquiring the materials A very useful website for finding chemicals for any experiment is The Household Products Database Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) This chemical used to be widely available as a fertilizer. Now the best way to purchase fairly pure quantities is as stump remover.

This source is usually around 98% pure, the other 2% being an anti-caking agent. Stump removers confirmed as KNO3 sources: Gordon's stump remover Hi-Yield brand stump remover Sulfur This chemical is often sold as a soil acidifier and fungicide. These sources tend to be only about 50% sulfur. Given the low melting point of sulfur (115.21 °C, 239.38 °F) it may be possible to purify it by heating it and either relying on density to cause the sulfur to float to the top (the other ingredients are often more dense) and pouring it off. Depending on the particle size of the ingredients, heating it on a screen and alowing the sulfur to drip through could be another option. Charcoal Although it may seem like one of the easier ingredients to find and buy, it is a better idea to just make your own. Charcoal that is sold for barbecues contains a clay binder to make it into the nice briquette shape. Making charcoal is very easy and allows you complete control of ingredients.

All that is required is a fireproof container with a small hole in it to vent the gas produced(CAUTION: this gas is very flamable). The container is filled with your wood of choise and then heated until no more gas is produced. Let it cool and open the container. Instructions for large scale production Status: * Completed Conclusions: * must grind up oxidizer very finely, recommend blender or mortar and pestle * coarser mixtures are cool to watch * leaves too much sludge to be pleasant to clean up Making Gunpowder From The Foxfire Book, Volume 5 - � 1979 The Foxfire Fund; Published by Doubleday Books "Black powder is and isn't hard to make depending on which end you look at it from. It is a long and tiresome task if you make more than ten pounds at a time. "Out on the West Coast, as in some southern states, the trend by the government is to prevent its sale with mountains of red tape. Making your own black powder, however, is not unlawful as yet, as far as I know." "By weight measure, black powder is made of seventy-five parts saltpeter finely ground, fifteen parts charcoal, and ten parts sulfur.

All ingredients must be fine ground separately. This can be accomplished with either a mortar and pestle, or with a hand-cranked flour mill. Never mix all three ingredients before grinding unless you want to turn your mill into a deadly grenade, or your mortar into a cannon that can blow off your fingers or even your hand." "Then the ingredients can be mixed with a small amount of water so the mixture comes out with biscuit-dough consistency. Usually when I mix the ingredients, I add just enough stale urine to make the batch bunch about like biscuit dough. The urine, substituted for water, gives the powder more oxygen and higher performance." "Flowers of sulfur is ideal for gun powder, and it can be bought in most drug stores in four-ounce bottles or pound cans." "It can also be found in pure deposits around volcanoes, and in early times, because it was found where molten lava issued from the earth, the sulfur condensed around the rims of the volcanoes was called brimstone." "Today, in certain places around the world, sulfur is recovered from un- derground deposits by pumping live steam underground through pipes. The sulfur melts and, being lighter than water, is easily pumped out at another point close by.

Then it is pumped into big ships that haul it to industries all over the world. That's why you can buy a hundred-pound sack for about three dollars in most places. "Saltpeter, the chemical that produces the oxygen for the other ingredients when lit off, can he made by putting urine and manure of any kind in a big cement tank mixed with water until you have about three hundred gallons mixed up. Then you put on a tight lid and let it sit for about ten months. You have to have a drain pipe and valve at the bottom, and a stainless steel filter screen installed beforehand or you'll have one big mess on your hands. At the end of that time, you run the liquid that drains off through ashes into shallow wooden trays lined with plastic sheeting and let them stand for evaporation in the sun. When the water evaporates, potassium nitrate crystals (saltpeter) will form in the bottom of the trays." "In the old days in cities, most outhouses were fitted with trays or drawers under the seats that could be pulled out from behind the building.

They had night-soil collectors who were paid so much every month by the outhouse owners to keep those drawers emptied, and they'd come around with a special wagon into which they dumped the contents. When the wagon was full, it was hauled out to where another fellow bought the contents and dumped it into concrete tanks where the bacteria works it just like yeast works wine or bread dough. Then the liquid was run through ashes into shallow tiled or plain concrete evaporating trays or basins to recover the saltpeter." "Today, saltpeter can also he bought in most drug stores in bottles or cans." "Charcoal provides the carbon needed when the powder is lit off. When burning, the carbon assists in making potassium carbonates and carbon sulfates during the one one hundredth of a second that it is burning. Most of this is released at the muzzle of a smoke pole in the form of powder smoke. Some remains in the barrel in the form of fouling and should be swabbed out about every third shot if the shooter wants the round ball to continue to shoot true." "The charcoal should never be made from hardwood as hardwood has too much ash.

Such woods as chinaberry, willow, cottonwood, soft pine with no knots, or redwood and Western cedar make the best grade charcoal. A fifty-five-gallon drum with a snap-on lid and a match-stem-sized hole in the lid set over a fire Pit is a good charcoal maker. Take the wood and chip it or cut it into inch chunks and put a bucketful in the drum. Then build a hardwood fire under the drum and when smoke begins to spurt from the vent, light the wood with a match. When the flame goes out, your charcoal is made. Rake the fire out from under the drum, plug the vent with a bit of asbestos fiber or a nail that fits in tight, and let the drum sit overnight to cook. You can then crush and powder the charcoal with a mortar and pestle, or run it through a hand-cranked grain grinder to a flourlike fineness. " "By the way, Just yesterday I took time out and made batch of powder, and this time, when I mixed the ingredients, I added homemade alder charcoal instead of redwood and improved the powder's performance 100 per cent.

I recently bought a tight little sheet-metal heater stove for camp cooking and by accident discovered that getting a load of alder going good and then closing it UP tight and dampering it until it went out and turned cold converted the alder into nice pure charcoal. " "When making black powder, never add any other ingredients or explosive powders unless you wish to turn your muzzle loader into a grenade that can kill you or cripple you for life. Keep your black powder stored in steel, airtight cans in a cool, dry place, and out of the reach of children. My parents failed to do that, and I've carried powder marks on my face for the last thirty years. A ten-year-old may think he knows what he's doing, but ten years don't give him enough prudence to think many things out ahead of time before he lights that match." "The nice thing about shooting black powder is that commercial black costs about two cents a round, and homemade about a half-cent a round. " As the demand for powder grew in the Southern Appalachians, fairly large operations came into being for its manufacture. As Jim Moran told us, "Powder was made in this area.

The big powder mill that was around here is gone now--the place burned up and all. But it was on Boozy Creek, and it was operated back in the early 1800s and possibly before by the Hughes family. They were also gunsmiths. They were somehow connected with the blockhouse which was on the Wilderness Road. That was where Boone wintered after his son was bushwhacked on the Wilderness Road. Now that was quite a settlement around there. One winter I went up on Timbertree Branch near the blockhouse site and there were about ten or fifteen cabins around there made out of poplar logs. They were only about twelve feet square--didn't have any windows or anything in them. I think they were the residue of that holdup of immigration when those people got that far and they were afraid to go on. I went back over there about five years ago, but there's none of that left there now." "But these Hughes, they ground that powder on millstones. I found that out. I know one man who found the old order book for the powder mill. He had it photostated. That mill blew up twice. One time they found shoe tacks in the charcoal.

The story was that it was sabotaged. One time it blew a fellow's hand off." "Willow charcoal is what they used for the powder. And then saltpeter- you know you hear about saltpeter caves. Over around Saltville they've found a lot of the vats and stuff where they leached that out from bat guano. That was done during the Civil War. In fact, they've uncovered one of those caves in the last ten years or so and found the vats still intact in the cave. That's Saltville, which is about thirty-five or forty miles north of here. And the same thing in Big Stone Gap. Powder for the Battle of King's Mountain was made on Powder Branch near Erwin, Tennessee." Another of these operations was located in Mammoth Cave. Recently, in a remarkable experiment there, potassium nitrate crystals from saltpeter were produced again in the traditional method. Carol A. Hill, one of the coordinators for the Saltpeter Research Group, describes the procedure that was used that day: "Before the 187Os, caves were the primary source of nitrate used in the manufacture of gunpowder.

Saltpeter mining was one of the first major industries of the new frontier, and one of the principle objectives of exploring new territory was to find saltpeter caves. Caves were mined by individuals and also commercially for national defense purposes during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. Many homesteaders in the Virginias, Kentucky, and Tennessee had their own individual saltpeter caves and from them would make their own gunpowder in home-constructed V-vats or 'hoppers.' "Making a V-vat entailed using a peg-and-hole construction. The holes were made with a hand auger; the pegs by whittling down the end of a log with a hatchet and then by trimming with a knife . The frame was then pounded together with a wooden mallet . A froe was used to make the side boards. Bolts of wood that were straight-grained and well seasoned were the best for this purpose. The glut was used as a wedge to split the log base of the collecting trough. The trough was then hewn out with a foot adze and hatchet.

After the hopper was constructed, twigs were laid in the bottom of the vat, and then wheat straw was laid on top of the twigs and along the side boards to help keep the vat from leaking. "Cave dirt was tested for its nitrate potential by the following procedure: A footprint or mark was made in the dirt and left for twenty-four hours. If the print was scarcely visible by the next day, then the dirt was deemed high in niter. A mattock was used to break up the cave dirt, and a wooden saltpeter paddle was used for digging and scraping The dirt was removed from the cave in gunny sacks and poured on top of the twig and straw in the V-vat. Buckets of water were then poured over the saltpeter dirt to leach it of its nitrate or 'Mother liquor'. The mother liquor (also sometimes called 'beer' would run down the sides of the V-vat and into the split-log base and out into the collecting trough. A dipper gourd was often used to transfer the mother liquor into a container. This same liquor was poured again and again over the saltpeter dirt because releaching caused more nitrates to be dissolved.

According to the old reports, releaching went on until the solution was of sufficient density to float an egg. "The next step was to combine the mother liquor rich in calcium nitrate with wood ashes that contain high amounts of potassium hydroxide. The best woodashes for this purpose were made by burning hardwoods such as oak and hickory. The mother liquor was either poured directly over the woodashes or the woodashes were leached in barrels and the leachate directly combined with the mother liquor. Upon combination, a white haze could be seen , and this white precipitate (calcium hydroxide or 'curds' as it was called) would slowly sink to the bottom of the barrel. If the solution contained an excess of calcium nitrate, the product was termed 'in the grease.' An excess of woodashes produced a condition called 'in the ley.' The wood ash leachate was poured into the mother liquor until the white curds could no longer be seen precipitating out of solution. The remaining solution thus contained the still soluble potassium nitrate. This solution was dipped out into an apple-butter kettle (or"evaporator'), and a fire started under the kettle.

Turnip halves were then thrown into the boiling solution to help keep it from foaming and to take up the dirty brown color. Oxblood (or alum) was also added to the boiling liquid and caused the organic matter to rise to the top of the liquid and form a scum which, with continued boiling, was constantly ladled off. After a few hours of boiling, the hot liquor was poured through cheesecloth in order to filter out the remaining scum and organic material. Upon cooling, fine, bitter, needle-shaped crystals of niter (potassium nitrate) formed in the liquor. These crystals were then collected and dried. Potassium nitrate crystals were far superior to calcium or sodium-nitrate crystals because they are non-deliquescent (do not take up moisture from the air) and, hence, would not make the gunpowder wet and unusable. The nitrate crystals thus obtained had to be further refined and purified.

This purification procedure was done either by the individual and homemade into gunpowder, or it was done after the saltpeter crystals were sent to a refinery where the final gunpowder was made." Five Surprising Facts About Gunpowder Five Surprising Facts About Gunpowder Posted by Squiffy – February 7, 2011 Gunpowder has been with us since at least the tenth century AD, but here are some surpring facts you may not know about this essential ingredient of warfare, fireworks and cigarettes. Disclaimer: please don’t blow anyone up using the information on this page. Contrary to what you may feel, blowing people up is never the solution to life’s problems. Instead, take a look at the other pages on this site; you’ll find many gunpowder-free solutions to changing your life. So, without further ado, did you know ….

Five Surprising Facts About Gunpowder Gunpowder is made from three ingredients that you can easily purchase at a garden centre Gunpowder has been used as a flavouring and for curing meat Gunpowder-propelled rockets were used in warfare as along ago as the 13th century The most important ingredient in gunpowder was traditionally extracted from the urine-laden earth found beneath horses’ stables A key ingredient of gunpowder is used to keep cigarettes alight Charcoal, Sulfur and Saltpetre: The Holy Trinity of Traditional Explosives Gunpowder is made from three ingredients, each serving a special purpose. Charcoal provides the real motive force behind gunpowder’s kick; sulfur lowers the temperature at which the gunpowder ignites and ensures that the gunpowder burns smoothly and quickly, while potassium nitrate, also known as saltpetre provides extra oxygen in solid form that allows the other two ingredients to burn explosively. Surprisingly, all of these ingredients are available from garden centres. Charcoal is sold as a fuel for barbecues, sulfur is used to control certain kinds of fungus, while potassium nitrate is used as a plant fertilizer, supplying plants with vital nitrogen.

Gunpowder is made by grinding all these ingredients finely and mixing them well together, typically while wet to prevent explosion. The resulting powder is usually made into pellets by pressing through sieves in order to control its burning characteristics, before being gently dried. The same ingredients are used to make fireworks, often with the addition of metal powders to add color to the flames. The Surprising Origins of the Ingredients of Gunpowder Charcoal is made from wood; when wood is heated in low-oxygen conditions, it turns black and chars but retains enough carbon to burn smoothly and efficiently. In fact really high quality charcoal is almost pure carbon. Sulfur is found as a yellow stone associated with volcanic activity. Sicily was for a long time the world’s main source of sulfur, but now modern chemistry provides us with a range of options for obtaining sulfur from sulfur-containing ores. Powdered sulfur is sold as a yellow powder by garden centres, and even by chemists for acne control, under the name “flowers of sulfur” (“flowers” in this context meaning powder). The powder does not burn easily by itself, but when it burns it creates acrid fumes that are best kept away from.

But the prize for the strangest and most intriguing ingredient of gunpowder goes to saltpetre, usually known these days by its modern chemical name of potassium nitrate Potassium nitrate is a chemical combination of potassium, nitrogen and oxygen. It is the oxygen that makes potassium nitrate useful in explosives and fireworks manufacture. When gunpowder burns, the oxygen contained in the saltpetre easily becomes detached and reacts with the sulfur and charcoal. Nitrates are an essential part of the cycle of life on planet Earth. Plants require nitrates as a source of nitrogen, and potassium nitrate (which of course also supplies potassium) is therefore a vital ingredient in fertilizer. Only plants in the pea family can procure their own nitrogen; nodules on the roots of these plants contain bacteria that ‘fix’ nitrogen from the air, turning it into solid nitrates that the plants can use. Compost containing pea and bean plants is therefore a source of potassium nitrate, and you can extract nitrate from well-rotted compost with relative ease, albeit with a lot of mucking about with smelly liquid compost extracts.

But one of the strangest, albeit important, traditional sources of potassium nitrate was the earth underneath stables where horses had been kept. Horses’ urine breaks down into nitrates in the ground, from which the nitrates can be extracted for use in gunpowder. Gunpowder as a Flavoring Yes, gunpowder has been used as a flavouring, and has in the past even been kept in salt shakers on dining room tables. The flavor comes mostly from potassium nitrate, which itself enjoyed a brief vogue as a condiment in the nineteenth century. Nitrates and their closely-related sisters, the nitrites, are still used as a preservative in certain Dutch cheeses, and more importantly as the curing agent in bacon, ham and other cured meats. Bacon in fact owes much of its flavor and color to nitrates. The Ancient Romans noticed that, while meat cured with salt generally turned an unappetizing gray color, sometimes meat turned red when cured – a color much preferred to gray. They figured out that the nitrates contained in certain rock salts caused meat to turn red rather than gray, and started using nitrates to cure meat.

Nitrates combine with the red haemoglobin in blood to create a stable red-colored substance. It has been shown that nitrates change into nitrites during the curing process, and for this reason nitrites are a permitted food additive (E250, for instance), even though they are strongly suspected to cause cancer and (perhaps unsurprisingly given the above-mentioned fact regarding their affinity for haemoglobin) heart disease. But let’s not be too alarmist; plants naturally contain nitrates anyway, so you can’t completely avoid them. Fireworks, Warfare and Drugs While the Ancient Chinese made fireworks with gunpowder, gunpowder-propelled rockets were apparently used in warfare as long ago as the 13th century, for instance by the Mongols. As if Mongol hordes aren’t bad enough in themselves without them firing rocket at you too! The juxtaposition between rockets, closely associated with modern warfare, and the primitive horse-riding Mongols, is indeed an odd one. More recently, potassium nitrate has become a vital ingredient of cigarettes.

Believe it or not, tobacco tends to go out easily if burnt by itself; that’s why cigarette manufacturers add potassium nitrate to it, so that that oxygen supplied by the nitrate causes the tobacco to remain lit (alas, the potassium nitrate in cigarettes may well contribute to their cancer-causing effects). Fuses were traditionally made from string or rope and potassium nitrate for the same reason. Fortunately potassium nitrate is no longer extracted from rotted horses’ urine; a fact that every smoker can be grateful for.

Question: The main ingredients of gunpowder are saltpetre, charcoal and what else?
Answer: Sulphur