Cheddite is a class of explosive materials invented in 1897 by E. A. G. Street of the firm of Berges, Corbin et Cie and originally manufactured in the town of Chedde in

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is Ann ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in the early twentieth century. Closely related to Sprengel explosives, cheddites consisted of a high proportion of

inorganic In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemist ...

chlorates mixed with nitroaromatics (e.g. nitrobenzene or

dinitrotoluene Dinitrotoluenes could refer to one of the following compounds: * 2,3-Dinitrotoluene * 2,4-Dinitrotoluene * 2,5-Dinitrotoluene * 2,6-Dinitrotoluene * 3,4-Dinitrotoluene * 3,5-Dinitrotoluene External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dinitrotoluene ...

) plus a little paraffin or

castor oil Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its density is 0.961 g/cm3. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about ...

as a moderant for the chlorate. Several different types were made, and they were principally used in

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

ing. Due to availability of ingredients and easy production process it was also the most common explosive material manufactured by the Polish Underground State in occupied

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

; it was used for production of the

R wz. 42 R, or r, is the eighteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabe ...

and Filipinka hand grenades. Since the 1970s, Cheddite is the commercial name for primers CX series (CX 50, CX 1000 and CX 2000) for shotgun cartridges.

References

{{reflist Explosives

See also

References