Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Where would I get Calcium Ammonium Nitrate from?

Where would I get Calcium Ammonium Nitrate from?

sbbspartan - 6-3-2012 at 16:56

There is a method of making 68% nitric acid very easily with almost no decomposition, but it requires sulfuric acid and calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN). I already have the sulfuric acid, but I can't find out where to buy the calcium ammonium nitrate from. I know it is used in a lot of fertilizers, but I can't find any. Does anyone know where to get it, or what brand of fertilizer contains it? I would prefer it if I could get it at a hardware or gardening store, rather than online. Also is there any way to tell the difference between calcium nitrate and calcium ammonium nitrate. I have looked for the NPK for each, but I cant find a definite answer. I have heard that CAN has a NPK of 15.5-0-0 with 19% calcium, but I have also seen that same rating for just calcium nitrate as well as a rating of 11.9-0-0 with 16.9% calcium. Do companies just sell it as Calcium Nitrate, when it is actually CAN. Also the formula for Calcium Nitrate is Ca(NO3)2.4H2O and the formula for CAN is 5Ca(NO3)2.NH4NO3.10H20. Also, is there any way to chemically or physically tell the difference between the two, such as weighing it, or seeing how it reacts with fire or acid. I just don't want to accidentally buy calcium nitrate instead of CAN. For anyone that is interested, the video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7akk5ppJjEw

neptunium - 6-3-2012 at 17:04

ebay sales a calcinit wich is actually CAN . i dont know where else to find it but once you do, you can test it easily, it releases ammonia when mixed with a solution of NaOH ...calcium nitrate doesnt do that.

sbbspartan - 6-3-2012 at 17:20

Thank you so much, I've been looking everywhere. I can get 4 lbs or "Calcium Nitrate Calcinit water soluble" for $9.99 and it has free shipping. That is incredible pricing. It says it is Calcium nitrate, but it has the same NPK as CAN, and it is only $10.00 so I might as well buy it and do the NaOH test you said. I'll buy some soon, and post a reply once I find out if it is CAN or not. Thanks

[Edited on 7-3-2012 by sbbspartan]

tastyphenome - 6-3-2012 at 17:23

Lol, this is funny to me for the following reason:

All across the internet, in every dark speed nook and meth cookery, there are people freaking out because a lot of cold pack producers have switched to an impure form of CAN instead of AN. they are to the point of tracking down production run numbers etc.

so your problem is the mirror of theirs!

Anyway, i would assume(lol@chem assumptions) you could very easily purify this dirty-ish CAN. look for packs that have a brownish substance instead of the white AN. it may not even be dirty, i am just guessing due to the color. I have never seen this myself, but i dont get my AN from coldpacks.

inspector071 - 6-3-2012 at 17:49

Are you just wanting to make nitric acid, or are you specifically trying to use CAN to make it?

UnintentionalChaos - 6-3-2012 at 18:42

CAN is standard shorthand for ceric ammonium nitrate, please pick a different acronym.

sbbspartan - 6-3-2012 at 19:05

Quote: Originally posted by inspector071

Are you just wanting to make nitric acid, or are you specifically trying to use CAN to make it?

I am just trying to make nitric acid easily. From watching this video and some other videos on youtube, this seemed like one of the easiest methods for making nitric acid. Also, when you make it this way, it barely decomposes at all into nitrogen dioxide and is quite pure.

sbbspartan - 6-3-2012 at 19:08

Quote: Originally posted by UnintentionalChaos

CAN is standard shorthand for ceric ammonium nitrate, please pick a different acronym.

Sorry, I didn't know that. On wikipedia, it said CAN stood for Calcium Ammonium Nitrate, but I guess Wikipedia is wrong quite a bit. Thanks for the correction.

inspector071 - 6-3-2012 at 19:25

I use potassium nitrate to distill my nitric acid. I ordered 5 pounds of it quite inexpensively online. It can also be found in hardware stores as a type of stump remover (the other main stump remover being copper sulfate). I was in my local hardware store today and they sold a pound of KNO3 for about $4. My hardware store also carries concentrated sulfuric acid as drain cleaner for about $20 a gallon. I own a retort for simple distillations such as nitric acid. I put 200 grams of potassium nitrate into my 500 mL retort and add enough sulfuric acid (usually around 150 mL) so I'm distilling a liquid and not a powder with a bit of sulfuric acid in it. I then heat my retort in a mineral oil bath over an alcohol flame for several hours. I seem to be getting around 75 mL of pure nitric acid (not the azeotrope) per distillation. It doesn't seem like much for the amount of reactants I'm using, but the reactants are cheap and cleaning out my retort isn't that much of a pain (just kidding, cleaning that thing is a bitch. I should have bought a real distillation setup instead of this antiquated alchemical apparatus). I'll see if I can upload some photos of my results for you.

inspector071 - 6-3-2012 at 19:36

Here are some pictures of my retort distilling nitric acid. I made a few modifications to it to try and make the thing a little more efficient. I have seen a significant improvement since adding the copper heat sink/shroud. Keeping the neck cooler allows nitric acid to condense faster. The brown bottle is my final product, around 50-75 mL of pure nitric acid per 200 grams of potassium nitrate. The distillation leaves behind a fairly solid cake of potassium sulfate, which is why I add extra sulfuric acid since cleanup is easier. I just light the flame and let it do its thing. I'm not concerned with monitoring temperature since sulfuric boils at a much higher temperature. The temperature of the oil bath is usually around 130 C though.

neptunium - 7-3-2012 at 06:11

thats probably the easier way to go ..i usually measure stochyometric ratio of sodium nitrate and 98% sulfuric acid and distil it .
i obtain a clear liquid slighly yellow that fumes red fog in humid air...
Also I wanted to point out that the calcinit brand is pretty dirty and will need to be purify ..it might also contain urea witch give off ammonia when reacting with bases as well .. you can get a few pounds of NaNO3 from ebay easy.
The stump remover brand made of KNO3 is getting hard to find (in the US) but if you still get it from little hardware store more power to you! (litteraly!)

Neil - 7-3-2012 at 07:59

Quote: Originally posted by sbbspartan

Quote: Originally posted by UnintentionalChaos

CAN is standard shorthand for ceric ammonium nitrate, please pick a different acronym.

Sorry, I didn't know that. On wikipedia, it said CAN stood for Calcium Ammonium Nitrate, but I guess Wikipedia is wrong quite a bit. Thanks for the correction.

CAN is used by the fertilizer folk to refer to Calcium Ammonium Nitrate which is a mixture of Calcium Nitrate and Ammonium Nitrate as well as Calcium Ammonium Nitrate which is a mixture of dolomite, magnesium nitrate and ammonium Nitrate that forms Calcium ammonium nitrate on wetting.

If you find that un-confusing then you have a mighty brain indeed.

Steve_hi - 7-3-2012 at 09:27

27-0-0 fertilzer
I paid 25 for a 30 lb bag at synagri in quebec it's just an agricultural products store in quebec you must have similar in the U.S.

neptunium - 7-3-2012 at 09:34

oh you re in quebec Steve! cool on peut communiquer en francais alors!
Synagri is exclusively in Canada but i have seen some similar product all over the US try a little mom and paps store in the country maybe

Formatik - 7-3-2012 at 12:25

Quote: Originally posted by inspector071

Here are some pictures of my retort distilling nitric acid.

If that is a plastic cap you have on the glass bottle it will get attacked. Red fuming nitric acid eats plastic caps like crazy.

Red fuming nitric acid is best stored in all glass, and the pressure released occasionally (oxygen gas pressure). I've noticed this gas pressure buildup when storing it for few weeks also.

Below we can see what fuming red nitric acid (d=1.52, >99%) does to a regular plastic cap after several weeks of storage in a dark and cool area, the polyethylene layer I put under the cap didn't help anything. The plastic cap got viciously attacked. As the parts of the cap fell into the acid an immiscible suspension formed (seen on the picture on the right). Considering how red fuming nitric acid inflames nitrile rubber, I'm glad there was no fire.

Frothy gurgling of a dying plastic cap: Save me!

neptunium - 7-3-2012 at 13:36

i have a 1 liter bottle with a teflon cap ... its in the lab fridge . i noticed that pressure build up as well but since this winter has been mild i blamed it on the temperature swing in my basement,
but since i put it the fridge no preassure has build up whatsoever.

[Edited on 7-3-2012 by neptunium]

inspector071 - 7-3-2012 at 20:33

Hrm, I'll keep that in mind. So far I'm using it very quickly so it's hardly getting stored. When it is stored it's kept at 5 C in my lab fridge. I have some reagent bottles being shipped so I'll be able to use a glass stoppered one from now on.

Also, does red fuming nitric acid necessarily fume red? I've always read that the acid produced from the distillation of nitric acid from a nitrate and sulfuric acid produces red fuming nitric acid, but the stuff I've made has always been a slightly yellow liquid that fumes white. I've never seen any trace of red in my fumes.

neptunium - 7-3-2012 at 21:08

the red is (as you know) NO2 . the white stuff is the combination of NO2 and water in the humid air surrounding the acid.

depanding how humid your area is, it might fume red (low humidity ) or white (high humidity)
lower concentration and high humidity may make a red fuming acid white fuming

[Edited on 8-3-2012 by neptunium]

inspector071 - 7-3-2012 at 21:13

Alright, thanks for the info. When I opened up my bottle of nitric acid in my basement/lab, which is very close to a dehumidifier it still fumes white. I do live in the south, though, so humidity is ever present. So is the only difference between white fuming nitric acid and red fuming nitric acid the presence of those dissolved NOx? And the best way to turn RFNA into WFNA being to bubble oxygen through it at elevated temperatures?

sbbspartan - 8-3-2012 at 16:42

I already have some potassium nitrate at home and I ordered some calcinit (Calcium Ammonium Nitrate) off of ebay a while ago. I might also get some sodium nitrate soon off of ebay. I will try to make nitric acid from each of these chemicals and see which one produces the purest most concentrated form of nitric acid in the highest quantity. I will post my results when I am done. Also Neptunium said that "the calcinit brand is pretty dirty and will need to be purified ..it might also contain urea which will give off ammonia when reacting with bases as well". How would I go about purifying the calcinit brand into pure Calcium Ammonium Nitrate? Would it be fairly easy or would it take a while?

neptunium - 8-3-2012 at 17:26

i have tried to calcinit route but was pretty disapointed .
its dirty (brownish deposit when disolved in water) and its hard to seperate the nitrate from the urea.
one way to do it would be to disolve in acetone, where nitrates are soluble but not urea.

i gave up and went back to the sodium nitrate and 98% sulfuric acid.

Removing nitrogen oxides from nitric acid

Formatik - 9-3-2012 at 03:41

Quote: Originally posted by inspector071

And the best way to turn RFNA into WFNA being to bubble oxygen through it at elevated temperatures?

There are probably a dozen threads on this forum that mention this topic. Several options are available for that purpose. A few of those are:

To remove nitrogen oxides (preferably warm) air or a CO2 stream is lead through the acid, which lead the nitrogen oxides away as mentioned by Million (J. pr. Ch. 29 [1843] 337), Smith (Phil. Mag. [3] 31 [1847] 454), Roscoe (Lieb. Ann. 116 [1860] 211), etc.

To get highly concentrated nitric acid completely colorless, distill out of a glass apparatus at 45 deg. under 15 mm Hg pressure, Veley (Chem. N. 66 [1892] 175).

The best method to removing the last traces of nitrogen oxides according to Veley,Manley (Phil. Trans. A 191 [1898] 370) is by leading a stream of ozonized oxygen through the acid and then following with vacuum distillation.

grndpndr - 14-3-2012 at 01:20

Did you purchase fertilizer Grade YARA Calcinit. Neptunium? If you want a clean yara Calcinit fertilizer you will check with hydrponics stores for solution grade or hydroponics grade calcinit.Either one has less that .02 isolubles in a saturated soltion of calcinit.My solutions of saturated calcinit(hyd/or solution
grade of Yara Calcinit remain crystal clear even saturated.
Theres no dirt, sand,mysterious ingrediants contaminating the Yara hydrponics or fertigration grade Yara Calcinit.

I can only assume you bougt the cheaper Yara fetrilizer grade Calcinit.

I suspect you inadvertantly bought the inexpensive farm grade/calcinit which would account for the mess.

[Edited on 14-3-2012 by grndpndr]

neptunium - 14-3-2012 at 06:00

Quote: Originally posted by grndpndr

Did you purchase fertilizer Grade YARA Calcinit. Neptunium? If you want a clean yara Calcinit fertilizer you will check with hydrponics stores for solution grade or hydroponics grade calcinit.Either one has less that .02 isolubles in a saturated soltion of calcinit.My solutions of saturated calcinit(hyd/or solution
grade of Yara Calcinit remain crystal clear even saturated.
Theres no dirt, sand,mysterious ingrediants contaminating the Yara hydrponics or fertigration grade Yara Calcinit.

I can only assume you bougt the cheaper Yara fetrilizer grade Calcinit.

I suspect you inadvertantly bought the inexpensive farm grade/calcinit which would account for the mess.

[Edited on 14-3-2012 by grndpndr]

yup! thats exactly what i did! i found the cheapest crap and bought it ! i had limited money and didnt bother to look further ....thanks grndpndr i appreciate

RonPaul2012 - 14-3-2012 at 08:22

I'm pretty sure the salt that you are after forms a hyrdrate , so you may want to dehydrate it before you add the sulfuric acid.

If not , you may end up getting an azeotrope , either that or using extra acid.

[Edited on 14-3-2012 by RonPaul2012]

[Edited on 14-3-2012 by RonPaul2012]