nannah - 26-8-2014 at 01:32
Hi, i would like to ask you guys if it would be possible for a regular hobbyist with access to the reagents needed to prepare NaBH4 and other high
power reagents, (KMNo4 for example) at home.
I will not pursue this on my own, at least not for a couple of years at least. 
Im a newbie, so for me to take that on sould be foolish. I am just curious if its do-able.
Thanks.
gdflp - 26-8-2014 at 04:47
There is a sticky thread in the general chemistry forum on permanganates. There's no good way to get uncontaminated potassium permanganate at home.
As for sodium borohydride check out the middle of the unconventional sodium sticky thread in Technochemistry. There was a possible success in making
it, but I don't believe any attempts to purify it were made.
Fantasma4500 - 26-8-2014 at 08:15
nurdrage had a video on how to get a solution of MnO4.. however NaOH molten with MnO2 can produce Na3MnO4 and Na2MnO4.. supposing you could try KOH
instead and add a tiny bit of KNO3, but you would perhaps want to build a neat forge of some sort for doing this on a decent scale and get some bulk
chemicals.. then it could be potentially possible to get a smaller crop of KMnO4 crystals as it has pretty poor solubility in water at 0*C
Magpie - 26-8-2014 at 08:35
Member ordenblitz thought he had accidentally discovered a way to make NaBH4 using a bomb calorimeter. I tried to follow up on this but was
unsuccessful.
NaBH4 can be made using methyl borate (easy enough to make) and NaH (not so easy to make). Len1 in his book shows how to make NaH. Buying NaH is
probably more difficult and expensive than buying NaBH4.
I think making NaBH4 would be a good research project for this forum.