29
08
2006
on this day…ozone and guncotton
Posted by: woodchurchscience in chemistry, events, ks3, ks4, warrenon this day…christian friedrich schönbein died in 1868. he was a german-swiss chemist who discovered and named ozone and was the first to describe guncotton (nitrocellulose). he noted ozone appeared during thunderstorms and named the gas ozone for its peculiar smell (ozo is greek for smell). later experiments showed that sending an electric current through pure, dry oxygen creates ozone. his discovery of the powerful explosive called cellulose nitrate, or gun cotton, was the result of a laboratory accident! one day in 1845 he spilled sulphuric and nitric acids and soaked it with a cotton apron. after the apron dried, it burst into flames! It eventually was used for smokeless gun powder.
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