The British started replacing lyddite with TNT in 1907.
The United States Navy continued filling armor-piercing shells with explosive D after some other nations had switched to TNT; but began filling naval mines, bombs, depth charges, and torpedo warheads with burster charges of crude grade B TNT with the color of brown sugar and requiring an explosive booster charge of granular crystallized grade A TNT for detonation.
Blue = Exercise, White = Phosphorus, Gray = Smoke and originally used as a yellow dye.
A nitrating mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids is used to nitrate toluene to a mixture of mono- and di-nitrotoluene isomers, with careful cooling to maintain temperature. This yellow solid is sometimes used as a reagent in chemical synthesis, but it is best known as an explosive material with convenient handling properties.The explosive yield of TNT is considered to be the standard measure of bombs and other explosives.In the final step, the DNT is nitrated to trinitrotoluene (TNT) using an anhydrous mixture of nitric acid and oleum.Nitric acid is consumed by the manufacturing process, but the diluted sulfuric acid can be reconcentrated and reused.