How to Make Nitrocellulose

How to make cheap Nitrocellulose from ping pong balls, black powder, and acetone for use in igniters and detonators.

Step 1 Mix Acetone and Cut Up Ping Pong Balls

Cut Ping Pong ball into small peices to make them easier to disolve in the acetone. Ping Pong balls themselves are a type of nitrocellulose, acetone will disolve them and make them easy to work with and make it possible to add black powder for a more violent ignition. After the ping pong balls are cut up and in the contianer you are using to mix your ingredients in pour enough acetone to cover the cut up balls and than add that amount again. You don't want it too think and sticky.

Comments

[dauweiler]

This isn't really the making of nitriocellulose. this is Recycling of Celloloid.
Simple Nitrocellulose is made by mixing 20 ml concentrated salpetric acid an
40 ml concentrated sulfuric acid and 2 g cotton ( mixing the acids before adding the
Cotton). The temperature of 20°C should not be exceeded or the mixture
will decompose veary quickly.
you can't allways use the technique shown in this instructable, because Ping Pong balls are often made of polyethylen or polystyrene.
If you want to make Celloloid you desolve nirocellulose in acetone, add some
camphor and lett the acetone evaporate.

[AzNSilentAssassin]

if you add cap gun powder, how do you crush it up without it exploding in your face? i would stick with match powder. what other powder can be used for this?

[The Homemade Arsenal]

Far as I know, there is no way to keep cap gun powder from exploding. It likes to trick you; it'll let you get maybe twenty or so of them emptied out into a container, and then you look away for one second and POP!! There goes your fingernail. It gets a good 5 or 10 feet though, but honestly fingernails are NOT what you want to be propelling with the powder.

tl;dr lurk moar, don't mess with capgun powder(ammonium triIodide is safer imho) or lose a fingernail. It might grow back, but it won't be like the others.

here's a link to some stuff that's safer to transport as a powder than capgun bullshit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KlAf936E90&feature=related
inb4 "that isn't safe at all"

[techno guy]

So ping pong smoke grenades shoot smoke out violently because it's made with nitrocellulose.

[matt_and_nick]

this would be good for making quick loading packs for a muzleloader

[manmelvin]

arnt ping pong balls made of celluloid?

[pyro-jim]

sorry to bring back an old post but celluloid is made of nitrocellulose.

[freakyqwerty]

No it is not;
Ping pong balls are made from celluloid which if you read the wikipedia article (I know, I know its unrelible and all that, but if it is used along with common sence it can have some good info) it says that celluloid is the name of a class of compouds created from nitrocellulose and camphor which is why its bad to use the ping pong ball smoke bombs (toxic fumes)

There, thats my lecture for today.

[pyro-jim]

"celluloid is the name of a class of compouds created from nitrocellulose" That's just a way of saying that the compounds called celluloid are made from nitrocellulose. Rant unneeded...

[beehard44]

can this be used for making flash paper?

[M4industries]

 This is mis-titled and has terrible pictures, but I did learn that you add gunpowder to the mix.

[mr.space]

if I coated string with this would it be waterproof? this isn't the same nitrocellulose as 'gun cotton', that involves nitric acid etc. but well done with the Instructable

[mr.space]

It's got camphor in it, making it burn slower

[struckbyanarrow]

yes beacause this is what waterproof visco fuse is coated with

[yohoo444]

ping pong balls are made from nitrocellulose its a common misconception that you can make it from them this is more of a way to make it moldable to surfaces but its still cooler than a shattered ping pong ball

[Zegen]

Are you sure that this isnt in the same family as adding styrofoam to gasoline? Nitrc acid is awefully hard to comeby these days. But I dont know much about acetone solutions. Nice instructable tho!

[Mattrox]

If you soak cotton balls in this will it make gun cotton??????

[Tombini]

No, guncotton is nitrocellulose . A mixture of cotton (cellulose) and nitric acid will produce nitrocellulose

[Mattrox]

Did you notice at the top ya know where its says the name of the instructable it says How to Make Nitrocellulose

[Tombini]

I thought you where asking about guncotton, and it would work but not as well as you would assume

[dagabu]

You might want to Google gun cotton first before making it, it will self ignite when dry. It takes an acid wash followed by water washing.

[Tombini]

No, as long as you neutralise your nitrocellulse self ignition is improbable. The flash point of pure nitrocellulose is 4.4C and Its flash point is well above room temperature. I'm assuming by acid wash you where refering to nitric acid...

[dagabu]

Tombini, sounds like you know a lot more than me about the issue, my comments are made based on the written history of the discovery of guncotton where the nitrocellulose was covering his apron as a dust and he spilled some nitric acid in his work area and thinking quickly, used the apron to wipe it up and hung it to dry on a door. The story goes that the wind caused enough friction to ignite his apron and thus guncotton was invented. Totally by memory, feel free to fix.

[Tombini]

I have no idea about the history of nitrocellulose, and cannot be bothered to research XD But wind doesn't produce nearly enough friction to ignite nitocellulose made that way That would although be quite interesting watching your apron... POOF!

[dagabu]

Really, here is the story: Although his wife had forbidden him to do so, Schönbein occasionally experimented at home in the kitchen. One day in 1845, when his wife was away, he spilled a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid. After using his wife's cotton apron to mop it up, he hung the apron over the stove to dry, only to find that the cloth spontaneously ignited and burned so quickly that it seemed to disappear. Schönbein, in fact, had converted the cellulose of the apron, with the nitro groups (added from the nitric acid) serving as an internal source of oxygen; when heated, the cellulose was completely and suddenly oxidized. Oesper, Ralph E. (1929). "Christian Friedrich Schönbein". Journal of Chemical Education 6: 432 – 440. I forgot about the heat as well, sorry!

[struckbyanarrow]

could you specify how many ping pong balls to how much acetone?

[dagabu]

Sure, a six pack of ping pong balls from Wally World and a 16 ounce bottle of pure acetone from the nail polish shelf will make a 25% Nitrocellulose Lacquer concentration. Play with them first till they break (don't want to be wasting fun here) tear them apart into small pieces by hand and drop them in the bottle. Takes around four days to fully liquefy. Should pour like thin syrup when done.

[xenobiologista]

haha, didn't know that about ping pong balls. i work in a molecular biology lab and was thinking of nitrocellulose membrane filters. any other everyday items made of that stuff?

[slim_jim]

Guitar picks are also nitrocellulose.

[twenglish1]

so your saying they will burst into flames if ignited

[ChemEng08]

No Nitrocellulose picks are esterified which makes it highly stable and therefore boring. FYI Esterification is the addition of 2 oxygens, one of which is double bonded to the ester carbon and a handful of additional hydrogens and carbons.

[pyroarchist]

yes,they do, look up fender heavy guitar picks (100% nitrocellulose) and if you light the tip to the point of it melting, imbed other end in patato, fire out of small weakish cannon you get flaming patatoes!!!

[vince086]

do i have to put black powder in it ? can i dip coton into it to make some sort of explosif coton? and does it have to pure acetone or can it be nail polish remover? Nice instructable.

[Vulcanator]

nail polish remover is acetone unless otherwise noted on the bottle.

[mr.space]

pure acetone, i've tried with nail polish remover, doesn't work. it will light without black powder, but its not as useful, and not nearly as cool

[C17H19NO3]

no you don't have to put black powder in it, yes you can dip cotton in it and let it dry to make cotton that will burn fiercely (though it wont explode) and no it doesn't have to be 100% pure, but needs to be close.

[lobo_pal]

You should show the flame, I didn't know how big it would be until I lit the whole batch at once and almost lost some facial hair.

[the true king o fools]

cotton, explosive, cotton again!! learn to spell!!!

[vince086]

Really couldn't care less about my spelling. anyway, that wasn't exactly the answer I was waiting for was it?

[Vulcanator]

DUDE, FOCUS YOUR CAMERA ON THE RIGHT OBJECTS!