nodrog19
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NaNO3,NaOH,Al seperation
I bought some drain cleaner that is made of sodium hydroxide and sodium nitrate with the occasional Al flake in their. I want to seperate them,and
beacause of the Al, water isnt an option. Any ideas?
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UnintentionalChaos
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Buy different drain cleaner. I would hypothesize that the aluminum and nitrate is largely to keep people from using for other things than drain
cleaner since they are a PIA to separate. The best you can do is probably mechanically separate the aluminum in a dry environment, titrate a sample to
determine hydroxide content and ignore the nitrate for whatever reactions possible. Any solvents used for separation would have to be dry and then
you'd need to remove the solvent. You can buy it pretty cheap over the internet for biodiesel or soap making, although shipping is less than fun.
[Edited on 6-23-08 by UnintentionalChaos]
Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!
'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
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The_Davster
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Ever pan for gold?
Get a gold pan, and put the solid mixture in there and slurry with a nonreactive solvent(something neither are soluble in), a hydrocarbon or something
analogous.
I won't go through to motions for gold panning, as it is here, but the important motions are the swirling and rocking, followed by skimming off the Al chunks ontop. A few times will remove almost all,
but pick through with tweezers to make sure.
I did this small scale once, and only picked out about 5 little Al chunks after the panning motions. This was small scale in a pie plate, as I didn't
want to hurt my real gold pan It may not have been a usual pie plate, it was
shaped like a gold pan, with some ribbings and everything
The nitrate and hydroxide are still admixed, but the nitrate is pretty inert in most reactions, and a titration will give you the percentage of the
mix that is the desired hydroxide.
It is a pain in the ass(hydrocarbon goes everywhere), and finding a pure brand is far superior, or as mentioned, get it for soap making.
[Edited on 23-6-2008 by The_Davster]
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nodrog19
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what about ethanol?
is NaNO3 soluble in alcohol?
in california, there are zero sources of NO3- exept this and instant cold packs. there is a pure brand, but i want the nitrate. i want to do the
"Electrodeposition Through Glass"
experiment mentioned in Chemical Demonstrations, vol 4, by Bassam Z. Shakhashiri
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UnintentionalChaos
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Sorry, I kind of assumed since we were talking about drain cleaner that you were after the NaOH. What about stump remover? Some brands are only KNO3.
Read the label (they usually have a fold out with further information). I don't know how much NaNO3 is actually in the mix...NaNO3 is very soluble at
any rate and is probably a PIA to isolate. If there is a reasonable nitrate content, You might try dossolving it all in a small amount of water (keep
it out of glass and PETE), adding a very soluble potassium ion source (sadly KOH sounds like the best option) and chilling it to see if any KNO3
crystallizes out. Cold packs are probably a much better option but might be urea and not ammonium nitrate. The ones I buy say specifically that
they're NH4NO3.
Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!
'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
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16MillionEyes
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I bought two cold packs from Rite Aid today. The package states Ammonium Nitrate and water as the only two ingredients. Does anybody know how pure
this ammonium nitrate actually is? Perhaps from your own experience?
I've seen a couple of msds (although not Rite Aid, doesn't even list the product on their site) from some other brand. Accordingly, it's water 60% and
NH4NO3 40%. Other sites confirm this.
http://www.custom-kits.com/MSDS/Kwik_kold.pdf
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ScienceSquirrel
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Can't you just buy potassium nitrate from www.ebay.com?
I just had a look and there are people on there prepared to sell you the neat stuff by the pound.
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16MillionEyes
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I don't use eBay due to personal reasons. If I can find this stuff fairly pure, readily available, and cheap all OTC why not?
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ScienceSquirrel
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Fair enough.
Over the years I have bought chemicals in technical purity grade from garden centres etc, eg sodium nitrate, iron sulphate, potassium sulphate and I
have bought stuff off ebay which
turned out to be quite unpleasant on arrival eg copper sulphate.
Sometimes using chemicals that are less than pure adds an interesting air of authenticity to the proceedings eg making ancient ink from oak galls and
iron sulphate that obviously contains small amounts of clay and rust particles.
On the other hand if you want to carry out say quantitative analysis and need stuff pure enough to act as a reagent then you have a lot of
crystallisation in front of you.
Some chemicals are a delight to make.
Sodium carbonate is great. Heating sodium bicarbonate produces great sodium carbonate that is a lot better than soda crystals. On the other hand
pyrolysing cream of tartar to produce potassium carbonate is strictly for those who want to get in touch with their inner alchemist. Vile clouds of
organic gunk pour off and the pearl ash has to be heated to near incandescence to complete the reaction and get rid of residual carbon.
For the chemist looking to prepare their own reagents from over the counter materials this is a true friend 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_table
[Edited on 11-8-2008 by ScienceSquirrel]
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Ketone
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| Quote: | Originally posted by nodrog19
what about ethanol?
is NaNO3 soluble in alcohol?
in california, there are zero sources of NO3- exept this and instant cold packs. there is a pure brand, but i want the nitrate. i want to do the
"Electrodeposition Through Glass"
experiment mentioned in Chemical Demonstrations, vol 4, by Bassam Z. Shakhashiri |
Could work, as far as I've heard - only 0,8g NaNO3 will dissolve in 100ml ethanol.. While NaOH should dissolve quite well.
Never had to extract NaNO3 from a solution myself (You can buy it pure at the grocery store here!) so I can't say if this will actually work. Try it
though.
And I do feel your pain if they don't even allow you to buy Sodium nitrate. From what you read- sounds like every even remotely useful chemical is
banned in California.
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ScienceSquirrel
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It would be useful if you can find out how much sodium nitrate is in there before you start.
It may be only 5 -10% in which case you are going to work through a lot of drain cleaner to produce a small amount of not very pure sodium nitrate.
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