nitrator

The operator would periodically run close enough to the nitrator to read the thermometer and run back to safety.

The valve regulating the flow of acid into the nitrator was operated by a wire several hundred feet away.

Cooling was accomplished by running cold spring water over the top and sides of the nitrator, keeping the reaction within a range of five degrees Fahrenheit.

RDX was produced by continually adding hexamine and concentrated nitric acid to a cooled mixture of hexamine and nitric acid in the nitrator.

The nitrator is cooled with cold water or some other coolant mixture and maintained throughout the glycerin addition at about 22 C, much below which the esterification occurs too slowly to be useful.

Later that afternoon, Sylvain Dreyfus and a young chemist called Nathan Daniels were in the nitrating section of the works when the contents of number nine nitrator became unstable.

Instead of a heavy cast iron nitrator, an old boiler shell with a capacity of 1,000 gallons (3785 Litres) was fitted with a central shaft of horizontal wrought iron paddles.