1.1 Loss of Damping Medium

• Industrial Nitrocellulose containing less than 30% water or other solvent damping medium is more susceptible to ignition. When the water/solvent content of nitrocellulose decreases its burning rate increases rapidly. Dry nitrocellulose burns fiercely.

• Decomposition of nitrocellulose and ignition can result if it is stored for a long period near any heat source. Rapid overheating caused by friction can also result in ignition of nitrocellulose.
• Smoking and use of naked light/fire to be strictly prohibited.

• Contact with strong alkaline, acidic materials or with oxidizing agent can lead to decomposition and ignition.
• Never allow concentrated acids, alkalis or amines to come into contact with nitrocellulose.

• Hazard data should be available wherever nitrocellulose is handled or stored. The user should read and understand MSDS, which gives detailed chemical and toxicological properties, before using the product.
• Clothing contaminated by nitrocellulose and lacquers is a fire hazard and should be changed at the earliest.
• Butanol/ethanol/isopropanol damped nitrocellulose is not dangerous to health but nitrous fumes from burnng nitrocellulose are a lung irritant with delayed action.
• Symptoms (in case of exposure to high concentration of nitrous fumes) :
  
  
  • Distressed breathing, tightness in the chest, coughing, headache, vomiting, cold, perspiration, anxious look, protrusion of eyeballs, blueness of the skin, fainting and collapse.