Ballistite
Encyclopedia
Ballistite is a smokeless propellant
made from two high explosives, nitrocellulose
and nitroglycerine. It was developed and patent
ed by Alfred Nobel
in the late 19th century.
s firing volleys would be completely unable to see their targets after a few shots. Secondly, their location would quickly be obvious because of the huge cloud of white smoke
hanging over them. Similarly, black powder severely fouled barrels, necessitating constant cleaning, sometimes in the middle of action. Such fouling also limited the introduction of rifled firearms, with their closer-fitting bullets. For rifles, this problem was partially-overcome with the introduction of the Minie ball
and the resulting rifled musket. Black powder fouling meant that early revolvers were often built with a relatively loose fit to prevent them from jamming. Further, autoloading firearms quickly become inoperable due to fouling. Black powder is also corrosive.
In 1884, a French
chemist
, Paul Vieille invented the first smokeless powder
, called Poudre B
(Poudre Blanche = white powder). It was a great improvement over black powder. Poudre B was made from two forms of nitrocellulose (collodion
and guncotton), softened with ethanol
and ether
, and kneaded together. It was three times more powerful than black powder and it did not generate vast quantities of smoke. Smokeless powders are smokeless because their combustion
products are mainly gaseous, compared to around 60% solid products for black powder, i.e. (potassium carbonate
, potassium sulfate
, etc.). Poudre B was therefore immediately adopted by the French military; but it tended to become unstable over time, as the volatile solvents evaporated, and this led to many accidents. For example, two battleship
s, the Iéna
and the Liberté
blew up in Toulon
harbour in 1907 and 1911, respectively.
patented ballistite in 1887 whilst he was living in Paris
. His formulation was composed of 10% camphor
and equal parts of nitroglycerine and collodion
. The camphor reacted with any acidic products of the chemical breakdown of the two explosives. This both stabilized the explosive against further decomposition and prevented spontaneous explosions. However, camphor tends to evaporate over time, leaving a potentially unstable mixture.
Nobel's patent specified that the nitrocellulose should be "of the well-known soluble kind". He offered to sell the rights to the new explosive to the French government
, but they declined, largely because they had just adopted Poudre B. He subsequently licensed the rights to the Italian
government, who entered into a contract, on 1 August 1889, to obtain 300,000 kilogram of ballistite; and Nobel opened a factory at Avigliana
, Turin
.
The Italian Army swiftly replaced their M1870 and M1870/87 rifle
s, which used black powder cartridges, to a new model, the M1890 Vetterli, which used a cartridge loaded with Ballistite.
As Italy was a competing Great Power
to France
, this was not received well by the French press
and the public. The newspaper
s accused Nobel of industrial espionage, by spying on Vieille, and "high treason against France". Following a police
investigation he was refused permission to conduct any more research, or to manufacture explosives in France. He therefore moved to San Remo
in Italy
, in 1891, where he spent the last five years of his life.
, called the "Explosives Committee" and chaired by Sir Frederick Abel
monitored foreign developments in explosives. Abel and Sir James Dewar
, who was also on the committee, jointly patented a modified form of ballistite in 1889. This consisted of 58% nitroglycerin by weight, 37% guncotton and 5% petroleum jelly
. 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
.
Nobel sued Abel and Dewar over patent infringement; it eventually reached the House of Lords
in 1895 but he lost. The claim was lost because the words "of the well-known soluble kind" in his patent were taken to mean soluble collodion, and to specifically exclude the water
-insoluble guncotton.
Cordite, ballistite and Poudre B continued to be used in various armed forces for many years, but cordite gradually became predominant.
Ballistite is still manufactured as a solid fuel rocket propellant, although the less volatile but chemically similar diphenylamine
is used instead of camphor.
Smokeless powder
Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...
made from two high explosives, nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to nitric acid or another powerful nitrating agent. When used as a propellant or low-order explosive, it is also known as guncotton...
and nitroglycerine. It was developed and patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed by Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...
in the late 19th century.
The development of smokeless powders
For about a thousand years gunpowder, or black powder (Poudre N, Poudre Noire), as it was also known, was the only practical propellant. However, there were several major tactical disadvantages in the use of black powder. Firstly, a squad of soldierSoldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s firing volleys would be completely unable to see their targets after a few shots. Secondly, their location would quickly be obvious because of the huge cloud of white smoke
Smoke
Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires , but may also be used for pest...
hanging over them. Similarly, black powder severely fouled barrels, necessitating constant cleaning, sometimes in the middle of action. Such fouling also limited the introduction of rifled firearms, with their closer-fitting bullets. For rifles, this problem was partially-overcome with the introduction of the Minie ball
Minié ball
The Minié ball is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilising rifle bullet named after its co-developer, Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the Minié rifle...
and the resulting rifled musket. Black powder fouling meant that early revolvers were often built with a relatively loose fit to prevent them from jamming. Further, autoloading firearms quickly become inoperable due to fouling. Black powder is also corrosive.
In 1884, a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
, Paul Vieille invented the first smokeless powder
Smokeless powder
Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...
, called Poudre B
Poudre B
Poudre B : was the first practical smokeless gunpowder. Originally called "Poudre V" from the name of the inventor, Paul Vieille, it was later renamed "Poudre B" to distract German espionage...
(Poudre Blanche = white powder). It was a great improvement over black powder. Poudre B was made from two forms of nitrocellulose (collodion
Collodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types; flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible cellulose film...
and guncotton), softened with ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...
and ether
Ether
Ethers are a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups — of general formula R–O–R'. A typical example is the solvent and anesthetic diethyl ether, commonly referred to simply as "ether"...
, and kneaded together. It was three times more powerful than black powder and it did not generate vast quantities of smoke. Smokeless powders are smokeless because their combustion
Combustion
Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame...
products are mainly gaseous, compared to around 60% solid products for black powder, i.e. (potassium carbonate
Potassium carbonate
Potassium carbonate is a white salt, soluble in water , which forms a strongly alkaline solution. It can be made as the product of potassium hydroxide's absorbent reaction with carbon dioxide. It is deliquescent, often appearing a damp or wet solid...
, potassium sulfate
Potassium sulfate
Potassium sulfate is a non-flammable white crystalline salt which is soluble in water...
, etc.). Poudre B was therefore immediately adopted by the French military; but it tended to become unstable over time, as the volatile solvents evaporated, and this led to many accidents. For example, two battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s, the Iéna
French battleship Iéna (1898)
Iéna was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy. The ship's keel was laid in 1898 and she was completed four years later. Her design was derived from the preceding s with a heavier secondary battery and thicker armour. She retained the tumblehome characteristic of all large French warships...
and the Liberté
French battleship Liberté (1905)
The Liberté was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, and the lead ship of her class. Commanded by capitaine de vaisseau Louis Jaurès, She sailed to the United States after her commissioning...
blew up in Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
harbour in 1907 and 1911, respectively.
Military adoption of ballistite
Alfred NobelAlfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...
patented ballistite in 1887 whilst he was living in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. His formulation was composed of 10% camphor
Camphor
Camphor is a waxy, white or transparent solid with a strong, aromatic odor. It is a terpenoid with the chemical formula C10H16O. It is found in wood of the camphor laurel , a large evergreen tree found in Asia and also of Dryobalanops aromatica, a giant of the Bornean forests...
and equal parts of nitroglycerine and collodion
Collodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types; flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible cellulose film...
. The camphor reacted with any acidic products of the chemical breakdown of the two explosives. This both stabilized the explosive against further decomposition and prevented spontaneous explosions. However, camphor tends to evaporate over time, leaving a potentially unstable mixture.
Nobel's patent specified that the nitrocellulose should be "of the well-known soluble kind". He offered to sell the rights to the new explosive to the French government
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, but they declined, largely because they had just adopted Poudre B. He subsequently licensed the rights to the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
government, who entered into a contract, on 1 August 1889, to obtain 300,000 kilogram of ballistite; and Nobel opened a factory at Avigliana
Avigliana
Avigliana is a town and comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, with c. 11,000 inhabitants, located about 25 km west of Turin. Avigliana lies in the Susa valley, on the highway going from Turin to Frejus ....
, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
.
The Italian Army swiftly replaced their M1870 and M1870/87 rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s, which used black powder cartridges, to a new model, the M1890 Vetterli, which used a cartridge loaded with Ballistite.
As Italy was a competing Great Power
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, this was not received well by the French press
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
and the public. The newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s accused Nobel of industrial espionage, by spying on Vieille, and "high treason against France". Following a police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
investigation he was refused permission to conduct any more research, or to manufacture explosives in France. He therefore moved to San Remo
Sanremo
Sanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, in 1891, where he spent the last five years of his life.
Patent infringement claim against Great Britain
Meanwhile, a government committee in Great BritainGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, called the "Explosives Committee" and chaired by Sir Frederick Abel
Frederick Augustus Abel
-External links:...
monitored foreign developments in explosives. Abel and Sir James Dewar
James Dewar
Sir James Dewar FRS was a Scottish chemist and physicist. He is probably best-known today for his invention of the Dewar flask, which he used in conjunction with extensive research into the liquefaction of gases...
, who was also on the committee, jointly patented a modified form of ballistite in 1889. This consisted of 58% nitroglycerin by weight, 37% guncotton and 5% petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum or soft paraffin, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons , originally promoted as a topical ointment for its healing properties...
. Using acetone
Acetone
Acetone is the organic compound with the formula 2CO, a colorless, mobile, flammable liquid, the simplest example of the ketones.Acetone is miscible with water and serves as an important solvent in its own right, typically as the solvent of choice for cleaning purposes in the laboratory...
as a solvent
Solvent
A solvent is a liquid, solid, or gas that dissolves another solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution that is soluble in a certain volume of solvent at a specified temperature...
, it was extruded as spaghetti
Spaghetti
Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...
-like rods initially called "cord powder" or "the Committee's modification of Ballistite", but this was swiftly abbreviated to cordite
Cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance...
.
Nobel sued Abel and Dewar over patent infringement; it eventually reached the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
in 1895 but he lost. The claim was lost because the words "of the well-known soluble kind" in his patent were taken to mean soluble collodion, and to specifically exclude the water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
-insoluble guncotton.
Cordite, ballistite and Poudre B continued to be used in various armed forces for many years, but cordite gradually became predominant.
Ballistite is still manufactured as a solid fuel rocket propellant, although the less volatile but chemically similar diphenylamine
Diphenylamine
Diphenylamine is the organic compound with the formula 2NH. It is a colourless solid, but samples are often yellow due to oxidized impurities.-Preparation and reactivity:...
is used instead of camphor.