Gunpowder has been used for centuries, but did you know that the Chinese invented it by complete accident? Here's everything ...

But you can always reload great grandpa’s musket with some homemade gunpowder. All kidding aside ... that go into this experiment are ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride.

France could not import gunpowder or saltpeter and took to collecting urine from soldiers and livestock. This source of nitrates was collected, converted from calcium nitrate to potassium nitrate ...

Gunpowder recipes call for charcoal and sulfur in small quantities, both of which for aren’t too hard to find. But the main ingredient–potassium nitrate, also called saltpeter–was only ...

The author, popular historian Christopher Hibbert, went into how important it was for the soldiers to guard their gunpowder ... found a reliable source of potassium nitrate—saltpeter—in ...

Experimenting with life-lengthening elixirs around A.D. 850, Chinese alchemists instead discovered gunpowder ... name for the powerful oxidizing agent potassium nitrate — in medical compounds ...

or by the reaction of ammonium nitrate with potassium hydroxide or chloride. Early uses of KNO 3 included an oxidant in gunpowder, a preservative for meats and other foods, and a medicine for treating ...

The second used a placebo powder (bicarbonate of soda) with NovaMin toothpaste. The third used the placebo powder with potassium nitrate toothpaste. Potassium nitrate is the active ingredient in some ...

In a traditional firework a lit fuse kicks off the reaction, igniting the powder in the bottom of the shell. As the potassium nitrate burns, it lets off oxygen. The O 2 helps the charcoal and ...

Making gunpowder is a bit like cooking, except more explosive. Gunpowder makers in the 14th and 15th centuries used black powder brought to Europe from China, then mixed its three ingredients ...

charcoal and the food preservative potassium nitrate when — bang! — he invented gunpowder instead. The Chinese added this mixture to bamboo segments or rolled it up in paper tubes.