

In Dr. Stone Sekku couldn't make gunpowder anymore because Tsukasa has the
control of the cave full of bats, source of saltpeter used in gun powder and
nitric acid. So in which other way could Sekku create the required saltpeter?

Also could Sekku make gun cotton or TNT instead of gunpowder and use that for
explosive instead of gunpowder? If yes how could do that?


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2019-11-19T14:51:24.510
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2019-12-06T02:58:22.430
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dr.stone
Dr. Stone: How Senku could have made gunpowder without guano?


In Ch. 8 when they make the gunpowder Senku already had a bag of potassium
nitrate (saltpeter) prepared which he says he prepared long in advance.
Remember, before Senku and Taiju brought back the petrified Tsukasa and heard
his cull the herd ramblings they had a monopoly on the cave with the nitric
acid which gave Senku ample time to make the useful chemical saltpeter.
Besides its use as a component of gunpowder which was certainly one of Senku's
considerations potassium nitrate is a good fertilizer in case they wanted to
plant some crops and one of the easier chemical oxidizers for him to make.

As to why he didn't try for a different explosive is not explicit but TNT
would not have been a viable alternative for a myriad of reasons. I'm mostly
reading off wikipedia for this but the first step is to nitrate toluene in the
presence of nitric and sulfuric acid, while they have some nitric acid they do
not obtain sulfuric acid until much later as the process for making sulfuric
acid isn't something they had the tools to do. Both of those chemicals are
very dangerous and they don't yet possess glassware to store them safely. TNT
also started out as yellow dye, people of ages past were not really dumb and
really dead though as TNT is incredibly stable in standard conditions which is
one of its most important features. To detonate it you need some sort of
blasting cap which is itself a small explosive and at that point you'd
probably just want a different explosive. Gun cotton is similar as it can be
made using plant fibers and nitric acid but is very unstable in that form and
in its proper form also requires sulfuric acid. They theoretically could have
made something else that involves none of sulfuric acid, oil or better
containers but gunpowder is stable and powerful enough for the limited time
and resources they had


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2019-12-06T02:04:40.603
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2019-12-06T02:04:40.603
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answer


Spoilers from the manga

> In chapter 77 he makes nitroglycerin,

.

> They get nitroglycerin (C3H5N3O9) from glycerin/glycerol (C3H8O3) + nitric
> acid (HNO3) + Ms. Sulfurina (H2SO4). It is indeed pale yellow, and the fumes
> will cause headaches/dizziness

.

> [How Senku did
> nitroglycerin](https://twitter.com/cdcubed/status/1049325267775361029)


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