So, in my (university) chemistry class, pretty soon I'm going to have the opportunity to do an "extended experiment" lasting 3-4 weeks on a topic of my choice. Obviously, the first thing that came to mind was some sort of fun synth I've done before, but I'm at a loss thinking of things to experiment with. It's in the vein of "research," so I have to test the effect of one variable on another.

I would really like to do something with nitrocellulose, but can't think of any good things to vary. My best idea so far is to test the amount of nitration versus time spent in the nitration bath. Any other good ideas? I'll have to come up with a standardized procedure for all this. It sounds pretty fun, and I'm pretty excited about this opportunity. I've been acing the class so far, so I think my chem professor will let me do basically whatever I want.

I have access to a full laboratory, with glassware, liquid nitrogen, plenty of reagent-grade chems (not sure if they'll have cotton for reactions; I'll have to check), and analytical scales.

Thoughts?

Baking Soda + Vinegar FTW!

In all seriousness, nitrocellulose sounds like a great idea. Perhaps you could do several variations of the process and attempt to optimize the amount of energy it produces.

Try to perfect black powder, homemade that is.

You can test out batches with different types of charcoal then compare them non milled, simple screen, granulated and all kinds of stuff and then test them with a mortar or something.

Sounds nice... but its pretty hard to really record good test data on something like NC...

Theres also alot of things you could test on that... Density, flame envelope size, nitrogen content, gas volume produced, temp of burning, etc...

The grade of nitration could easely be determined through IR spectrum analysis, you'd need some sort of chromatography to determine how much of each individual ester is present though.

Hmm. I have access to both IR spectrum analysis. Not sure on the feasibility of chromatography, though. I'll look into that. We have GC machines, but those (obviously) require a gas.

My best idea so far was simply testing the change in mass from the cellulose to the nitrocellulose. I'll look into some of asilentbob's suggestions too.

Also, does anyone else have any other good ideas? I'm open to just about anything--but remember, I have access to a chemical lab, NOT a pyrotechnic lab (so no ball mill or anything)

EDIT: something that would let me use lots of cool glassware (vacuum distillation setups, condensing coils, etc) would be fun

How about the chloroform reaction and an extraction of a steam distillate?

Distill water with cubed orange peels or flowers or whatnot in to get a mixture of water and oily aromas.
Extract the aromas with cloroform you made from hypochlorite and acetone.
Distill the chloroform off and isolate the aromas
Make soap from fats and scent them with said aromas if time allows

uses steam distillation, normal distillation, separation funnel, ...