Ever thought about microwaving a ping pong ball? No? That's good. However, if you did, this is what would happen:
Then there is this:
So why is this happening? I bet you thought ping pong balls were safe? It turns out, that ping pong balls are actually made of a substance known as gun cotton, or nitrocellulose.
The picture above is the molecular structure of cellulose and nitrocellulose. Notice the difference? By the way, the parenthesis just mean that what is inside just repeats over and over. Technically, there should be the letter "n" in the bottom right to indicate "n" number of repeat units but...
Another substance that contains nitro groups and is highly flammable is one that you have also probably heard of, trinitrotoluene, or TNT. So, apparently things have have nitro groups (those are referred to as being nitrated) have some rather explosive properties.
Alright, how did someone figure out to nitrate cotton and make it explosive/flammable? Funny story. Gun cotton was invented by Christian Schonbein in 1845. Apparently, he liked to do chemistry experiments in his kitchen but his wife was less than enthusiastic about this practice. So, he waited until his wife would leave and conduct his experiments at that point. One day, his wife left and he spilled a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid (these are the components needed to nitrate something). He used his wife's apron to clean up the mess and hung it over the stove to dry. To his surprise, the apron spontaneously ignited (definitely put in the dog house or at least had to sleep on the couch) and gun cotton was invented.
So there you have it, the story behind gun cotton. Hope you enjoyed the post! Stay tuned for more!