War Time Uses of Wood 



Great guns are fired with chemically transformed 

 wood, and whole nations are kept alive by it 



By A. W. Schorger 



Chemist in Forest Products, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin 



ONE of the mysteries of the present war 

 is the source from which Germany 

 obtains the gun cotton used in the 

 manufacture of smokeless powder. A well- 

 defined belief exists in England that at 

 least part of the nitrocellulose (gun cotton) 

 needed by German powder factories is being 

 made from wood. 



When England declared cotton contra- 

 band of war, it was maintained by many 

 that Germany would not be greatly incon- 

 venienced, since she was already making 

 explosives from wood cellulose. The dis- 

 cussions that followed even developed the 

 silly suggestion that the forests of Germany 

 be destroyed by an enormous fleet of aero- 

 planes armed with bombs. One English 

 editor dryly remarked: "This would 

 scarcely be feasible since about one-third of 

 Germany is forested." 



It is an interesting fact that the first 

 successful smokeless powder was made 

 from wood, about 1865. This powder, in- 

 vented by Schultze, consists of a mixture of 

 saltpeter and nitrated purified wood. While 

 inferior to gun cotton in power, it still 

 retains high favor among sportsmen. Vari- 



A brick charcoal kiln. Here 

 great quantities of stump wood 

 and wood of poorer grade are used 



ous Other explosives, known as "white 

 powder," "yellow shooting powder," an<^ 

 "Bautzen blasting powder" are trans- 

 formations of wood. 



The propellant explosive used in both 

 large caliber guns and small arms is some 

 form of nitro-cellulose or nitro-glycerine. 

 On the caliber of the gun depends the size of 

 the grain required; for the powder must 

 burn uniformly and not too fast. Grains of 

 any desired size may be obtained by 

 mechanical processes, provided the original 

 structure of the nitrated fibers has been 

 destroyed so that they are reduced to a 

 gelatinous mass. Thus the successful use 

 of nitrocellulose powders depends upon the 

 possession of proper solvents. 



In the production of solvents the de- 

 structive distillation of hardwoods plays a 

 highly important part. It yields methyl 

 alcohol and acetic acid. From the latter is 

 made acetone. The lower cellulose nitrates 

 are soluble in a mixture of alcohol and ether, 

 but when the nitrogen content reaches 

 about thirteen per cent they are insoluble in 

 this mixture but are soluble in acetone. It 

 requires from seventy-five to one hundred 



