Found this non updated article at
Secret Scotland - ICI Ardeer which mentions some of the chemistry including nitrocellulose - NC - also known as gun cotton which I did technical support in UK for the German company for 8 years from 1986. I've noticed one NC signs in your pictures. Another old chemical paper can be found at
The New ICI Nitric Acid Plant at Ardeer - technology.matthey.com - probably not of interest to most - and this futuristic development brownfield plan at
Ardeer
There's a good article based on the Caerwent factory which also produced Nitro Cellulose as well as Nitro Glycerine.
Expand the third comment down in this link and there's a complete paste of the book's contents.
groups.google.com
The nitrocellulose used in Naval propellant was manufactured from pure
cellulose received in the form of paper reels.
Rolls of paper were made up of alternating layers of plain and corrugated
papers at the Paper Preparation Room. The "Scrolls" were made of 16 lb.
double crown thickness paper (7 1/2" wide and 22" in diameter, weighing 8
3/4 lb.) and were produced by the 10 paper corrugating and scrolling
machines. Total output varied from 150 to 200 scrolls per hour. The room
could also accommodate 1,400 finished scrolls.
The doorway to the connecting corridor to the next stage in the process
formed the point of demarcation between the clean floor of the Paper
Preparation Room and the acid floor of the Nitrating House. Here, as in all
parts of the factory, all acid floors and walls exposed to acid fumes were
made of Accrington Nori brick.
At the Nitrating House they were placed in groups of four, each group being
known as a "Pan", and further bundled into groups of 4 Pans, making a "Set".
Therefore there were 16 Scrolls of paper in a Set. There were 10 Sets in the
room, making a total of 2,000 lb. of Nitro-cellulose being prepared at any
one time. The Scrolls were dipped in mixture of 63% Sulphuric Acid, 22%
Nitric Acid and 15% water. After dipping the paper was left to soak for a
further 2˝ hours. Fume extraction hoods covered the pans during the dipping
operation, but were removed after a top seal of water had been distributed
over the surface of the acid. Then the spent acids were displaced by the
action of pumping water in to the pans. These acids were run along gutters
and into denitration towers for further processing.
The Scrolls were then moved by hand-propelled trucks to the Vat House. The
2,000 lbs of material prepared in the Nitrating House filled one vat. Each
vat was 9'6" in diameter and 7'6" high, made of wood, barrel fashion with
constricting iron bands, and were lined with antimonial lead. There are 28
openings in the floor, therefore, during periods of maximum production,
there was storage space for a total capacity for 56,000 lbs of
Nitro-cellulose in this particular room.
The contents of the vats were boiled by the application of steam heating.
The sequence consisted of two 12 hour boils, followed by four 4 hour boils,
and finally a 1 hour boil. After cooling the liquid was drained off, the
Scrolls unloaded and moved to the final stage at the Pulping & Blending
House.
In this final room the process machinery included 7 beaters, 6 potchers, 4
blenders (with grit extractors), and hydroextractors.
The beaters were cast iron sloping troughs, about 16 ft long. Rolls of paper
from the vat house were pulped, in water, by a 4.6 ton roller driven at 180
r.p.m. for 4 hours. The resulting nitrocellulose pulp was pumped away
through a 4" valve.
Water soluble impurities and light insoluble material were removed bv the
Potchers, essentially large centrifugal separators, supported on stilts.
These 11 ft diameter, shallow conical, tile lined vessels could handle two
beater loads of material at a time. Washing was carried out by skimming off
the excess water from the top of the material after settling, utilising a
skimmer supported by a ball float.
The blending tanks were tile lined with pump injection circulation, and
could handle 5 vat loads in pulp form. The pulp slurry needed to be diluted
before passing on to the grit extractors. Capable of handling 500 lb., the
centrifugal hydroextractors were used for wringing the nitrocellulose.
