Hello, I have made sodium nitro-methanate in my video on nitromethane by reaction of sodium ethoxide in ethanol with nitromethane. I've also made it with sodium hydroxide in ethanol. Both times
the solid turned brown after a few days open to the air however I did not really try to stop this (I had no intention of storage) but I believe that
ethoxide produced nitromethanate will take a while to turn brown if washed well with an anhydrous solvent and stored in a desiccator.
How long is a while? I don't quite know, but a few weeks seems obtainable, to me given how slowly it turned while open to the air (a day or two, so
we're not talking rapid water instability here). Some explosives just don't have a great shelf life.
And yes, I do prefer sodium nitromethanate than sodium methyl nitronate, but only just. It really was a 50/50 decision which term to use in the video
and now i've used one I might as well stick to it until someone gives me a reason why it's wrong.
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