Frederick Augustus Abel (1827-1902) was the first official government military chemist in Great Britain: Chemist of the War Department (1854-1888). His activities in this position resulted in his focus on gun-cotton. The material that Abel used was fabricated in 1845-1846 by Christian Friedrich Schönbein although it had its precursors in a French tradition of reacting cellulose materials (wood or cotton) in nitric acid. Schönbein produce a highly nitrated cellulose by steeping cotton in concentrated nitric and sulfuric acid. After washing and drying, the resultant material looked much like the original cotton but readily combusted and even exploded without, however, producing smoke. Schönbein immediately recognized the potential of the material as a military propellant (he gave the name “guncotton” to his product), patented his fabrication, and set to work arranging for both its manufacture and military use. But the material proved to be lethally and destructively unstable. Abel himself had fabricated a sample of guncotton “according to Schoenbein’s receipt” in 1846.[i] But it was in 1863, as Chemist of the War Department, that he received a request from the Secretary of State for War to investigate all aspects of the chemistry and fabrication of guncotton in order to stabilize it and make it useful. Abel’s involvement was intense through the rest of this decade; then it went more-or-less dormant until rekindled in 1888 in connection with an “Explosives Committee,” whose President Abel was named and under whose direction Britain’s first smokeless military propellant, Cordite, was developed. Guncotton was a component of Cordite. In my talk, I shall discuss Abel’s multifarious activities regarding guncotton, including: (1) his investigations of its general chemistry; (2) his devising means of stabilizing it; (3) his patenting his stabilizing procedure and arranging for the manufacture of “patent safety guncotton” primarily as a blasting agent; (4) his attempts to develop it use as a military propellant, for many years unsuccessful but finally achieved in Cordite. A number of these enterprises, notably the promotion of guncotton as a commercial blasting agent and the development (and patenting) of Cordite, brought Abel into direct competition – and collision – with Alfred Nobel.

Study, stabilization and utilization of gun-cotton by Frederick Abel

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.