RU_KLO - 8-3-2023 at 07:19
I know that the opposite can be done (nitric acid from ammonia or ammonium salts)
But is there a way/process to make ammonia (or ammonium salts) from nitric acid?
Thanks,
Herr Haber - 8-3-2023 at 11:27
I'm not sure this is will help you in any way because to me it seems a waste of valuable reagents but you can just react your nitric acid with ammonia
water to get ammonium nitrate and then react it with sodium hydroxide.
What's your purpose here ? Making ammonia gas ?
- Easiest: heat a solution of ammonia water to get the gas out.
- Easy:If you can find either urea, ammonium sulphate or nitrate which are widely used in agriculture you can make a lot of gas...
Fulmen - 8-3-2023 at 11:34
Yes. Nitrates can be reduced to ammonia in alkaline conditions using aluminum (or Devarda's alloy).
BromicAcid - 8-3-2023 at 12:30
Devarda's alloy, that's a blast from the past. I remember buying a gas bubbler a few decades back that had information for arsenic analysis and it
instructed me to use Devarda's alloy, it wasn't in my chemical encyclopedia so I actually had to go to the library - those were the days.
RU_KLO - 9-3-2023 at 04:06
@Herr Haber, yes I know. Thanks.
but what I was searching is a way to produce Ammonia without starting from ammonium containing reagents.
The main idea is if "it is end of the world or you are in an island or if you have a time machine and ended in 1300" how to produce basic reagents
from what you can find.
nitrites/nitrates could be obtained from soil/guano
@fulman will check google for Devarda's alloy.
Another methods I found on internet:
1) concentrate your own pee, to get urea. from there Nitric acid
2) electrolysis of nitric acid + copper sulfate to get ammonium sulfate - from there Nitric acid.
As stated, how can you get the basic mineral acids from what you can find.
Sulfuric acid on heating naturally occurring minerals composed of sulphates.
HCl from 2 NaCl + H2SO4 → Na2SO4 + 2 HCl
Once you have the basic mineral acids, other reagents are easier to make.
Texium - 9-3-2023 at 06:36
That seems like a much more roundabout way of getting to ammonia from urine than concentrating urine to get crude urea, then using the urea + alkali
hydroxide method to get ammonia.
mayko - 9-3-2023 at 09:08
Microbes in anaerobic environments are always looking for oxygen substitutes ... pond mud is stinky thanks to bacteria which reduce sulfate to
sulfide, for example. There are also nitrate reducing bacteria; some of them stop at nitrogen gas but some go all the way to ammonium ion.
Herr Haber - 9-3-2023 at 09:30
@Mayko: Darn right ! Danish Salami used to be made with NH4Cl and turning bad it had a distinct ammonia taste. Same for some cheeses.