Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
what it says on the tin. How will it affect the world, considering that nitric acid is one of the precursors to dynamite and other explosives?
what it says on the tin. How will it affect the world, considering that nitric acid is one of the precursors to dynamite and other explosives?
Interesting POD. It's tough to say. They probably would have made it by heating a combination of niter, alum and blue vitriol. In this process, the ingredients were expensive (they'd have to get saltpetre/niter from Africa) and the resulting amounts of nitric acid low. Nevertheless, if they work at it, they could produce enough to be getting on with.
If they're lucky, they'll combine it with ammonia (I'm not sure if they would have been capable of that, though) to produce ammonium nitrate, the world's most common fertilizer.
If the Greeks have an effective fertilizer, that could have huge effects on history. Hell, the process, once discovered, is easily duplicated. It'll spread around the world, and the population will likely skyrocket in Antiquity. That'll reshape everything.
Cheers,
Ganesha
what it says on the tin. How will it affect the world, considering that nitric acid is one of the precursors to dynamite and other explosives?
Alexander the Great just got a new siege weapon.
If the components are expensive, I kinda doubt it'll fly well for a mass-produced fertilizer.
Well, I imagine that if they realize its effectiveness, an economy will spring up around producing it. Saltpetre was expensive in part because the trade routes were poorly developed, simply because it didn't have a lot of uses. Provide a use, and the cost will eventually drop. That's the theory, anyway.
Cheers,
Ganesha
I think that any Greek alchemist capable of this level of chemistry would probably have discovered gunpowder a good while before discovering nitric acid.