Potassium nitrate in the context of "Processed meat"

Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines, tunnels, and roads.

Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate, low ignition temperature and consequently low brisance (breaking/shattering). Low explosives deflagrate—burning at subsonic speeds—whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. Nonetheless, it was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use.

The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (which included the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times.

Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies," the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, gemstones, and later opium. The company also initiated the beginnings of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent.

Hasan al-Rammah (Arabic: حسن الرماح, died 1295) was a Syrian Arab chemist and engineer during the Mamluk Sultanate who studied gunpowders and explosives, and sketched prototype instruments of warfare, including the first torpedo. Al-Rammah called his early torpedo "an egg which moves itself and burns." It was made of two sheet-pans of metal fastened together and filled with naphtha, metal filings, and potassium nitrate. It was intended to move across the surface of the water, propelled by a large rocket and kept on course by a small rudder.

Al-Rammah devised several new types of gunpowder, a new type of fuse, and two types of lighters.

Niter or nitre is the mineral form of potassium nitrate, KNO₃. It is a soft, white, highly soluble mineral found primarily in arid climates or cave deposits.

Potassium and other nitrates are of great importance for use in fertilizers and, historically, gunpowder. Much of the world's demand is now met by synthetically produced nitrates, though the natural mineral is still mined and is still of significant commercial value.

A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target). Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems are seen as one viable solution for renewable, pollution-free energy.

Early designs used these focused rays to heat water and used the resulting steam to power a turbine. Newer designs using liquid sodium have been demonstrated, and systems using molten salts (40% potassium nitrate, 60% sodium nitrate) as the working fluids are now in operation. These working fluids have high heat capacity, which can be used to store the energy before using it to boil water to drive turbines. Storing the heat energy for later recovery allows power to be generated continuously, while the sun is shining, and for several hours after the sun has set (or been clouded over).

Khoja Wajid (also spelled Wazid, Wazeed; d. 1759) was a wealthy Armenian merchant who played a prominent role in the economic and political life of Bengal in the 1740s and 1750s.

He was the son of Khoja Mahmet Fazel, another notable Armenian merchant. Based in the port town of Hughli, he used his business prowess and influence at the court of the Nawab of Bengal to consolidate his commercial empire, gaining control over the economy of Bihar and establishing highly profitable monopolies over the trade of saltpeter and salt. He also controlled most of the opium trade. After consolidating his control over Bengal's inland trade, he expanded his operations to maritime commerce and acquired a trading fleet which, according to Sushil Chaudhury, "dominated the Asian maritime trade of Hughli." He had extensive business connections with the French, Dutch and English trading companies in India. In the early 1740s, Wajid became the official representative of the Armenian merchants of Bengal at the court of the faujdar of Hughli, later gaining a place at the court of the nawab in Murshidabad. By the early 1750s, he had become a political figure of great influence and a close ally of Nawab Alivardi Khan and his successor Siraj ud-Daulah. When Siraj came into conflict with the English, Wajid was sent as the nawab's emissary to negotiate with the English prior to the Siege of Calcutta. Wajid's commercial interests suffered after the English sacked Hughli, ostensibly in retaliation for Siraj's capture of Calcutta. Seeking to restore his fortunes, Wajid advised the nawab to ally with the French against the British, but fell out of favor at court when this plan failed. He was one of the last to join the conspiracy against Siraj ud-Daulah in May 1757.