MrHomeScientist
International Hazard
Posts: 1806
Registered: 24-10-2010
Location: Flerovium
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Potash from Charcoal Ashes
I know potash can be recovered from wood ash, but can it be made from charcoal ash? Charcoal comes from wood, after all.
I have a ton of ashes from years of grilling that I was about to throw away, but thought it might be cool to try extracting potash from it. Obviously
not a great way to get reagents, but could be a fun experiment.
|
|
|
Pumukli
National Hazard
Posts: 708
Registered: 2-3-2014
Location: EU
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Yes. 
If you have lots of it as you wrote, it may worth trying.
|
|
|
SWIM
National Hazard
Posts: 970
Registered: 3-9-2017
Member Is Offline
|
|
Give it a try, but be aware that yields vary greatly with the kind of wood.
Oak works great, cedar quite badly.
Some charcoal briquets are made from culm (waste coal powder and pieces), and I don't know how the potash content of that is.
|
|
|
Sulaiman
International Hazard
Posts: 3738
Registered: 8-2-2015
Location: 3rd rock from the sun
Member Is Offline
|
|
A couple of years ago I did similar ... the ashes saved from many bbq left to soak in a large bucket of water.
Some time later my wife informed me that she had helped to tidy up the area,
and cleaned out that messy bucket 
So that's one mistake to not make 
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
|
|
|
Alkoholvergiftung
Hazard to Others
Posts: 190
Registered: 12-7-2018
Member Is Offline
|
|
Justus Liebig wrote: You can get more pottash from the plants beside the road than if you burn down an forrest for it.
Wormwood. 35-45% Pottash
Thistle. 30-35%
Sunflower 15-25%
View 15-20%.
I think oakwood ash has only 5% and needle trees below 3%.
|
|
|
hissingnoise
International Hazard
Posts: 3940
Registered: 26-12-2002
Member Is Offline
Mood: Pulverulescent!
|
|
Indeed, potash comes from burnt green plant matter!
|
|
|
Carbon8
Harmless
Posts: 34
Registered: 1-1-2018
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Here's a partially-gated link that compares potash recovery from charcoal ash and tobacco ash:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed024p231
Here's a partially-gated link that discusses the first link:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed038pA612.3
It is also possible to titrate the potassium carbonate in ash without isolating it. Here's a gated link:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&am...
It might be interesting to do a video comparing the recovery of potash and soda ash from various charcoal ashes, wood ashes and seaweed ashes.
|
|
|
MrHomeScientist
International Hazard
Posts: 1806
Registered: 24-10-2010
Location: Flerovium
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Well I gave it a shot this weekend. I filled a gallon jug with 1 kg of ash and added distilled water until it was roughly halfway full. After vigorous
shaking and allowing to stand for a couple days, the solution is very basic (>10). Promising!
Thanks for the links Carbon8. That would make a cool video. The first link found charcoal ash to contain 19% potash; I'll have to see how mine
compares.
|
|
|
Fantasma4500
International Hazard
Posts: 1681
Registered: 12-12-2012
Location: Dysrope (aka europe)
Member Is Offline
Mood: dangerously practical
|
|
i recall leaves were something like 3x as concentrated in potassium as regular wood, so sign yourself up for collecting leaves as weekend gig
thistle is great if you can come by it, wormwood, if you ask me is not really doable because it doesnt grow a whole lot of places, i have an idea that
plants who feature some pink/purple components may contain reasonable amounts of potassium but this is pure assumption.
i recall unburnt wood soaked in water was used back in time to produce NaOH, so let it stand for a bit and you would end up with the corresponding
carbonate
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
