Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Write an article | Seven Jun

What do RMB, US dollars, euros, bullets and T-shirts have in common? I guess a lot of people can't answer that.

In fact, they all use the same common material, that is cotton. I didn't expect that.

(photo source: wikimedia) Cotton can not only be used to make clothes, but also the main component of paper money. More importantly, modern wars can not do without cotton to make bullets, so cotton is an important defense material.

Today we're going to see what's going on.

The paper money of most countries in the world is made of cotton.

(photo source: Hippopix) for example, the main component of the dollar bill is cotton, which accounts for 75% of the total, and the rest is flax.

Euro and Indian banknotes are pure cotton. The banknotes in the Philippines are 80% cotton and 20% banana fiber.

The main component of paper money in our country is also cotton.

According to the CCTV documentary "aerial Photography of China", China's banknotes are also made of cotton and are made of cotton from Xinjiang.

Xinjiang cotton (photo source: watermark) Why paper money is not "paper" money, but "cotton" money?

This is because cotton is much more durable than paper. "durable" means "strength" in material science, and the strength of cotton and paper mainly depends on cellulose, the main component of plant cell walls.

Cellulose under a microscope (photo source: wikipedia) however, the raw material of paper, wood pulp, contains only 50% cellulose, while cotton has a cellulose content of 94%, the highest in nature. So paper wiping your ass is useless, but paper money can be thrown into the washing machine.

Cotton banknotes are even more durable than the new generation of artificial notes. For example, the service life of a $100 bill is about 22.9 years. Australian banknotes are made of polymers and have a service life of about 5-15 years, which is much shorter than a $100 note.

The Australian dollar is made of polymer (plastic) (photo source: wikimedia). Then again, the cotton used in paper money is actually leftover material.

In the process of cotton processing, after gin, that is, after stripping the outer layer of long hair, the remaining short wool leftovers are called noils or comber waste, which are often used to make banknotes.

Cotton cashmere is the short fiber near the cottonseed (photo source: AsahiKaseiCorporation) specifically, the part that makes paper money is cotton cashmere. 95% of the materials are cotton cashmere.

What exactly is this cotton cashmere? They are actually shells left after the death of underdeveloped cells.

After cottonseed fertilization, some of the surface cells grow and then die, and their remaining empty shell is cotton. In other words, no matter how long it is, each cotton fiber is a cell. However, some of the cells are stunted, and they become the main body of cotton velvet.

(photo Source: wikimedia) in other words, the money we use is made of stunted cotton cells. However, because cotton cashmere comes from underdeveloped fiber cells, they are not as strong as fully developed long fibers, so it is said that cotton cashmere is "leftover material" and is not suitable for weaving into cloth, but it is suitable for printing money and making ammunition.

Let's talk about the second important use of cotton cashmere-the manufacture of nitrocellulose.

In 1845, a lady's apron accidentally brought mankind into the era of modern warfare and made cotton a strategic commodity.

That year, Christian Friedrich Sch ö nbein, a German chemist, accidentally knocked over the mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid while doing an experiment. In a hurry, he wiped it with his wife's cotton apron.

(photo source: pexels) his henpecked wife was angry and he took the cotton apron to dry. Unexpectedly, when I was close to the fire, the cotton apron suddenly burned to nothing. This made him feel very excited, because it showed that his wife's cotton apron was much more convenient than black gunpowder.

He called this sour cotton firecotton, which is what we now call the embryonic form of nitrocellulose. Later, with the improvement of French chemist Paul Vieille, modern smokeless gunpowder made from nitrocellulose officially appeared.

Nitrocellulose (Photo: wikimedia) Cotton smokeless gunpowder produces little smoke when it burns and burns only when it is compressed, so it was originally called Poudre Blanche.

More importantly, compared with the ancient black gunpowder, smokeless gunpowder can increase the range and accuracy of the projectile, thus changing the pattern of war at once. In fact, we see that the trenches in war movies appear after the invention of smokeless gunpowder, because accurate ammunition gives rise to the need to hide in deep pits.

Trenches (Photo: wikimedia) European rifles have changed from black powder to smokeless powder since 1890. Smokeless gunpowder is also considered to mark the beginning of modern warfare. Today, smokeless gunpowder is often used as a propellant, to promote the flight of bullets, or to make grenades and mines.

You know, smokeless gunpowder made of 1000 grams of cotton cashmere can produce more than 1000 bullets, which is why cotton is an important strategic material for national defense.

Of course, cotton is a natural material, and its quality will also affect the properties of nitrocellulose. No wonder the British Defense Ordnance Security Department (Defence Ordnance Safety Group) pointed out that the quality of cotton has an important impact on the ballistic nature of weapons.

Smokeless gunpowder made from cotton (photo source: wikimedia) so the question is, where can we find high-quality cotton?

Xinjiang of our country, of course. China is a big country in cotton. Many countries import cotton from our country. They are not only used to weave cloth, but also to make weapons.

Xinjiang cotton (photo source: watermark) for example, the famous German newspaper DIE WELT on November 29, 2022 revealed that almost all European arms manufacturers import cotton cashmere from China.

German newspaper Le Monde: Germany is short of ammunition and depends on China for ammunition. The article also said that almost all European arms manufacturers import cotton cashmere from China. The story of cotton is not over yet. In addition to money and weapons, cotton is also closely related to our spiritual life.

One of the main components of nail polish is nitrocellulose (photo source: wikimedia). In fact, nitrocellulose is also used to make wood paint and celluloid. Nitrocellulose is used for the smooth coating on the surface of musical instruments, and celluloid is used to make films and records. The material of nail polish also contains nitrocellulose because it dries quickly and is cheap.

All in all, cotton brings us money and smoke, as well as music and movies. It can be said that modern human life is made of these pieces of cell wreckage.

Cold knowledge: there is no paper to use money to go to the toilet, because the money can be washed.

Cover source: Jernej Furman | Flickr

Reference:

Https://docs.qq.com/doc/DVFZ0d2xwUHZGRXdl

This article is from the official Wechat account: bring Science Home (ID:steamforkids), author: everything.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.