Cellulose Nitrate In the future I hope to cover the chemistry of plastics on my website. As a build up to the plastics I'm covering the synthesis of cellulose nitrate.
Cellulose (C6H10O5) is a polysaccharides (glucose monomer) carbohydrate and is the earths most abundant biological polymer. The abundance of cellulose is in the most part due to it's occurence in algae, plants and wood. Although algae provides natures largest cellulose resource it's unpractical to farm it for industrial uses. Therefore the vast majority of the cellulose used in industry is infact derived from plants and wood. The list of cellulose based products is practically endless, but some of the areas in which cellulose plays a prominant part includes papers, inks, textiles, plastics and explosives.
Cellulose is made up of highly orientated long chain molecules of polysaccharide which gives it both strength and elasticity. As you can imagine, strength and elasticity are both very desirable properties in industrial and commercial senses. The usefulness of cellulose is further extended by the fact that its derivates demonstrate similar properties. One of the first derivates of cellulose was the synthetic polymer cellulose nitrate.
As the name suggests, cellulose nitrate is synthesized by nitrating cellulose, but that's not to say that all forms of cellulose nitrate are the same for different levels of nitration give different results.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Setup
UNDER CONSTRUCTION | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 |
Synthesis 1
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
| HNO3 (70% LR) | 50% | |
| H2SO4 (98% LR) | 50% |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Synthesis 2
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
| HNO3 (70% LR) | 33% | |
| H2SO4 (98% LR) | 66% |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Synthesis 3
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
| HNO3 (70% LR) | 33% | |
| H2SO4 (98% LR) | 66% |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Check back soon...
| Home |