If Canada's red-coated Gestapo, the Royal Canadian Mounted Pigs, are going to classify KMnO4 as a "restricted precursor", they would have to also ban
all Mn compounds, which is practically impossible! Mn is a fairly common metal, most often found in nature as pyrolusite, MnO2, found in black masses
in certain areas of basaltic eruptions (there is a deposit near where I live, although too small to be economical to mine), and in metalliferous
nodules deposited on deep ocean floors; the stuff is used widely as a support medium in "dry cell" batteries, from which it can be extracted. Mn is
widely used to make manganese steel, known for its tensile properties; and MnSO4 is used as an analytical reagent e.g. in aqueous dissolved oxygen
analysis.
Lower-valent Mn compounds can be fairly easily converted to permanganate by dissolution to give anionic species with excess KOH, which can then be
electrolytically oxidized; or reacted with plumbate (IV) or bismuthate(V); or solid MnO2 can be fused with a mixture of KNO3 and KOH.
Besides, for purifications involving oxidation, there are several other reagents that can be made to substitute for permanganate, depending on the
situation, particularly: OsO4 (rather too expensive), chromate or dichromate(VI), ferrate(VI), plumbate(IV), chlorate(V), perchlorate(VII),
periodate(VII), perxenate(VIII) (rather too expensive), H2O2, O3, hypochlorite, Cl2, and persulfate. All these would also have to be banned, along
with electrolytic cells. They might as well try to ban EVERYTHING, including even hematite, Fe2O3 (a mineral of very wide occurrence, especially in
Australia), because it can be used to make ferrate(VI), the substitute that most closely resembles permanganate. |