Our Weird And Volatile World Of NITRO!!!

I realized that I had some nitro in the house that I didn’t need. And, after watching your video, I thought: better out than in! So I discarded what I don’t need…just in case hehehe :) All that hand sanitizer with alcohol too..I’m lessening my load of it in the house. My neighbor gave me a bunch of bottles of it I’ll never use. It also smells weird 😿 is that stuff flammable too? I wish I were more scientifically inclined

Holy Cow Fran! White Falcon.! Yay for you.

Remember how "standard 110 VAC" was? My dad was the head of ANSI and sadly told me that story,

Bruce Havourd

Thanks for the really interesting episode. I suspect nitro film suffered from both lack of air (trapped out gassing) and huge masses of nitro cellulose in tight spaces. So once enough outgassing was allowed to build up the gas could self ignite. Other uses seem somewhat more stable and less likely to be trapped in the same way. But a good tip to keep nitro items out rather than sealed away when their own out gassing can accelerate decay. Ewen

Ewen McNeill

It's been used as a membrane material for Western blotting proteins in biochemistry. I used to do N-terminal protein sequencing by Edman degradation and we'd use polyvinylidene difluoride membrane and I'd have to remind people that they couldn't use nitrocellulose for samples they'd send to me, it would dissolve and mess up the machine (unlike the nigh-invulnerable to solvents fluoropolymer). But I have ignited nitrocellulose membrane just for fun! Burns mighty well! I demoed that for a friend's kids and some facebook mansplainer responded to photos with "oh, that's actually flashpaper" and I casually went with a response about the composition and pore size of the membrane and the reminder that you need to use PVDF for Edman sequencing, which is a good response for that kind of guy...

Michaela Pereckas

Another good reason to clean out the back room.

Daniel Bingamon

Collodion, wet plate photography required coating the emulsion, taking the picture, and developing before the emulsion dried,

Steven Ruhl

I feel like I have heard about the ubiquity of nitrocellulose before but had forgotten about it. That guitar has a great sound as well as looks!

Dr Andy Hill

I seem to remember the explosive problems of celluloid billiard balls from James Burke's connections series.

David Peaker

Initially I thought, oh cool a vid on diving with Nitrox, Fran and I are so much alike lol