chem101st - 12-3-2024 at 18:50
I followed some tutorials using cold packs from Walgreens. Both were their brand and labelled calcium ammonium nitrate, however one box was a
different packaging scheme.
The first box appeared to have no calcium or anti caking agent. Once dissolved, it was crystal clear and needed no filtering. However while boiling
off the water it went above 170C and was still boiling. If it was NH4NO3 it should have stopped boiling until it was at over 200C right? I let it cool
and got rock hard materials that I ground to a powder.
The second pack was clearly full of other stuff and gave a gross cloudy liquid once dissolved. I filtered it and got a clear and yellow liquid. This
time, it stopped boiling at 130C. Once cooled it was still clearly mushy and wet. Wth?
What is going on here? The part that concerned me was the first one smelled horribly of ammonia from the time I started boiling it. It doesn't smell
now, but every time I either heated it slightly (oven to dry at at less than 100C) or blended it is started smelling heavily of ammonia again. It
shouldn't be decomposing at such low temps right? I don't know how I could have messed anything up, but the way both are behaving seem to indicate
they are clearly not ammonium nitrate. Should I try recrystallizing them, or do I have something different entirely?
[Edited on 13-3-2024 by chem101st]
Texium - 12-3-2024 at 19:24
The answer is right there on the package. It’s calcium ammonium nitrate, i.e. a double salt of ammonium nitrate and calcium nitrate. It’s water
soluble and should give you a clear solution. You can’t separate the salts by recrystallization. Look up calcium ammonium nitrate on this forum.
There is plenty of information about it here.
Sir_Gawain - 13-3-2024 at 10:01
You can get pure ammonium nitrate by reacting it with ammonium sulfate or carbonate, then filtering off the respective insoluble calcium salt.