Discovery of nitrocellulose (guncotton)
Descubrimiento de la nitrocelulosa (algodón pólvora)
- Date
- 1845-1846 · confidence high
- Place
- Basel, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Christian Friedrich Schönbein
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
German-Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein accidentally discovered, in his kitchen in Basel, that a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids turned a cotton apron into a highly flammable material that burned without leaving residue, giving rise to nitrocellulose or guncotton.
The discovery was accidental: Schönbein spilled the acid mixture, wiped it up with a cotton apron and, on drying it near a stove, the apron instantly caught fire.
What it led to
- development of smokeless explosives for firearms
- raw material for celluloid and the earliest photographic and film stock
- advances in the plastics and lacquer industry based on cellulose derivatives