Now that the bamboo tube has cooling water, the boiling steam inside will be quickly cooled into water droplets as it passes through this section, and then drip into the collection bottle next to it.

I quickly collected a large bottle of distilled water. The process was not difficult, but my distillation flask was blackened by the firewood and I could not see the liquid inside at all.

Now that I have distilled water, my next step is to prepare dilute sulfuric acid.

The process of making dilute sulfuric acid is also very simple: dry sulfur powder heated at high temperature in a sealed space will form colorless sulfur dioxide gas with a pungent odor.

At this point, the condenser needs to be removed, the bamboo tubing bent by heating, and then inserted into the collection bottle containing distilled water.

This process continues until the distilled aqueous solution reaches saturation. To further increase the saturation of the water, it can be heated to around 40 degrees Celsius, which will allow the water to dissolve even more sulfur dioxide gas.

After the reaction of sulfur dioxide and water, I obtained a bottle of saturated sulfurous acid solution.

However, this is not dilute sulfuric acid yet; sulfurous acid is only trivalent sulfate ions. To convert it into tetravalent sulfate ions, an oxidation reaction is required.

In a civilized society, I could simply go to a pharmacy and buy a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to mix in and speed up their reaction.

However, I don't have the necessary conditions right now, so I can only use natural aeration to allow it to react with oxygen in the air to produce tetravalent sulfate ions.

To speed up the process, I poured the sulfurous acid into several metal bowls. The metal bowls increased the surface area of ​​contact between the water and oxygen, thus accelerating the reaction.

While the sulfurous acid was reacting, I cleaned the distillation flask and then scooped a small ladleful of the wine that had been fermenting the longest and had the highest alcohol content into my wine vat.

Then I refilled the water pot with water and set it up, and took another collection bottle and placed it at the opening of the bamboo tube.

What I'm doing now is distilling spirits. This process only requires three distillations to obtain some high-alcohol-content liquor, which is also an ancient method for increasing the alcohol content.

I didn't need much wine, and soon I got a few tablespoons of cloudy liquid. To ensure the rigor of the experiment, I also used charcoal to decolorize and remove impurities.

The resulting liquid is much clearer. I also have a use for this wine, but I don't need much.

I went to the dead wood and rocks near the shed and collected some reddish-yellow moss that was about the height of newly sprouted grass.

This moss, which grows as tall as grass, is actually quite old. But that's exactly the kind of old moss I want.

This type of moss is called cup-axillary litmus, which grows in soil or on the topsoil of decaying wood or rocks. It can be used as a natural acid-base indicator.

There are many other natural acid-base indicators, such as morning glory, purple cabbage, onion, carrot, etc.

However, due to limited resources, I haven't discovered any of these things yet, so I can only use this most widely distributed bryophyte.

This type of moss generally prefers to grow in damp, shady places and is relatively easy to obtain.

I crushed the collected litmus in an alcoholic solution, then removed the residue, and obtained a dark purple acid-base reagent.

By this time, the sulfurous acid solution should have reacted sufficiently. I took a few drops of the sulfurous acid solution and placed them on the surface of a clean glass bottle.

Then came the moment of witnessing a miracle. I dipped a pine needle into my homemade acid-base reagent and dropped it onto the sulfurous acid solution. The colorless solution immediately turned pale red.

It's done!

Looking at the red liquid, I felt a surge of excitement, as if a thousand horses were galloping through my heart.

The tetravalent sulfate ion is acidic, but it turns pale red under the action of the reagent, proving that it is genuine dilute sulfuric acid!

Now I'm collecting all the dilute sulfuric acid from the basins back into the glass bottle, and next I'll heat it with charcoal.

Sulfuric acid has a boiling point of 337 degrees Celsius. Its concentration can be increased by heating and distilling.

Using charcoal was also to better control the heat and to avoid blackening my bottles.

I kept the bottle of dilute sulfuric acid on a low flame, watching the charcoal fire the whole time to keep it at a moderate temperature.

After a period of distillation, white mist began to emerge from the mouth of the bottle, and the mist became thicker and thicker over time.

At this point, I removed the remaining sulfuric acid from the fire and let it cool down, resulting in a small half-bottle of pale yellow liquid. Theoretically, the concentration of this sulfuric acid had reached over 70%.

However, I still have to try it. The test method is very simple: I take a dry pine needle, insert it into sulfuric acid, and immediately take it out to observe.

At this point, the pine needles that have come into contact with sulfuric acid turn black at a visible speed and eventually become completely carbonized.

Concentrated sulfuric acid has strong oxidizing and dehydrating properties. The fact that the pine needles immediately oxidized and turned black when placed in sulfuric acid proves that the sulfuric acid concentration is at least 70%. Dilute sulfuric acid does not have strong oxidizing properties.

With concentrated sulfuric acid, we're halfway to producing nitrates. Now all I need to do is take out the wood ash from the stove and soak it in a container to extract the potassium salt solution.

To wash away all the potassium salts from the wood ash, I soaked it in water several times until the water was almost colorless.

The next step is to heat and distill the water in the wood ash water to make it more concentrated.

The next step is to manufacture nitrocellulose, also known as guncotton propellant, and the most important raw material for this is nitric acid.

At this point, the concentrated wood ash liquid and concentrated sulfuric acid are mixed evenly in a 5:1 ratio. Then, a water pot is placed on top, and the mixed liquid is put into a distillation flask and heated for distillation.

After a period of time, as white smoke and clear liquid were extracted, I obtained a small half-bottle of clear liquid.

This is not the usual nitric acid. The usual nitric acid contains only about 3% nitrogen, which can be used to make nitrocellulose, but its power is not maximized.

However, the nitric acid produced by the catalytic reaction of concentrated sulfuric acid can have a nitrogen content of about 13%, which is four times higher than the nitrogen content of concentrated sulfuric acid.

This means that with the same guncotton propellant, my guncotton is about four times more powerful than ordinary guncotton!

A fourfold increase in power is already a terrifying number; it's almost reached the limit of Firecotton's power.

The concentration of my product is still too high. I will continue to dilute the nitric acid by adding about 70% water.

Otherwise, this strong acid, which also has strong oxidizing properties, could directly corrode and oxidize the cellulose used for nitration into carbon.

As for the fiber used for nitration, it would be best to use a fiber like cotton, but I haven't found cotton yet, so I can only temporarily use fine mugwort floss to nitrate and make nitrated fiber.