Gelled acetone/nc?

[Lil_Guppy]

I've posted this in another forum, but have not really had much in the way of answers, so I thought I would ask here as well.

I was playing round with making NC lacquer for waterproofing, and I wanted to make it coloured. The only NC I had on hand was rifle/pistol ball powder, so this is what I used. I disolved it in some acetone to the required consistency. Having no food dye on hand I thought 'hmmmmmm KMnO4 might make an ok dye' so I sprinkled in a small amount. It worked, which was good. However... returning to the lab 15 minutes later to experiment a bit more, I noticed that the left over lacquer (which was sitting in a beaker) looked a little wierd. So I picked up the beaker and.... it was gelled to the consistancy of jelly with too much gelatine added. I then repeated the procedure a second time taking a better note of the quantities. I used around 20mL of acetone and dissolved as much ball powder (NC) as it would allow. I then added between 1-2g of KMnO4 and stirred well. After 5minutes of sitting it was gelled as per the first 'try'. The gel burns rather well, and remains lit when flying through the air. It also sticks to surfaces. Perhaps this could be useful as another alternative to the kewl styrafoam (sp?)/ petrol 'napalm'... But anyway, my question is any ideas as to what is formed, and why.

Apologies if this seems like a newbie/kewl question...

[simply RED]

Do not use KMnO4 to paint such mixtures, it reacts with the NC.

[Ropik]

Hmmm... I personally think that there are better alternatives to gelled flammables than acetone/NC/KMnO4 gel. Gasoline/wax, for example. I think your methode is OK, but for me too expensive to use in large device.

[Lil_Guppy]

Do not use KMnO4 to paint such mixtures, it reacts with the NC.
Thats obvious from the result I got :P By no means do I use it all the time. It was just that I had no colourants on hand at that time, and was feeling adventurous :P Since the result was a gelled fuel, I thought that it may be of interest to members here :) I was just curious if anyone knew what was going on chemically.
I think your methode is OK
It was more of a mistake than a method :P It just yeilded some interesting results

[Jacks Complete]

I'm quite suprised that an oxidiser as powerful as KMnO4 didn't cause a fire when added to something as fuel rich as NC. I suppose that when it burns it reacts them together?

I wonder what the longterm storage would be like...

And what's wrong with petrol and styrofoam? It gets rid of the foam that would otherwise fill my bin and the landfill, and it comes in handy as a firelighter. :-Þ