We did have a Hackaday Prize entry a while back on improvements to the Haber process for producing ammonia, which curiously is the feedstock for commercial nitric acid production processes.

The process involved looks to recover copper and nitric acid from copper nitrate, a common waste byproduct of processing metal. While a process called thermal decomposition exists to accomplish ...

the discovery of rendering cotton explosive by the Kse of sulphuric acid combinctl with the nitric, in treating it. The following is a summary of his process for making gun-cotton, described in ...