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Fire, Ashes, Ammonia.

aga - 29-10-2016 at 10:49

So, i was just transferring the ashes of an outdoor fire to the indoor 'estufa' using a steel ladle and a saucepan, and a faint hint of ammonia hit my nose.

The 'barbecue' is actually the stainless steel drum from an old washing machine, and it has a lot of ashes in it from previous fires (mostly olive wood).

What could be the source of the ammonia smell ?

Does anything else smell even remotely like ammonia ?

Previously i'd investigate this myself, but that seems to be old-hat these days - you just post the question online and get an immediate answer, which avoids all that nasty work thing.

Maroboduus - 29-10-2016 at 11:20

Maybe somebody's been pissing in it when he's had a few?

aga - 29-10-2016 at 11:26

So, that'd make mostly Steam.

I also pick my spot and can Aim pretty well.

(double vision certainly interferes with the process)

100% sure i never pissed in it.

Even when drunk, i avoid dangling bits of myself near fire - it's instinctive.

[Edited on 29-10-2016 by aga]

Morgan - 29-10-2016 at 11:27

Maybe?

Applications
Destructive distillation of wood produces hundreds of compounds including tar, terpenes, turpentine and methanol together with a solid residue of charcoal.[7][8]
Destructive distillation of a ton of coal can produce 700 kg of coke, 100 liters of liquor ammonia, 50 liters of coal tar and 400 m3 of coal gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructive_distillation
http://www.tutorvista.com/content/physics/physics-ii/fission...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ebNgtUwAo

[Edited on 29-10-2016 by Morgan]

unionised - 29-10-2016 at 13:00

Have you been burning magnesium?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_nitride

Texium - 29-10-2016 at 15:26

Alright aga if you're going to be cynical about the lack of "doing stuff" then you can at least have the decency to post it in Beginnings. You know better.

CharlieA - 29-10-2016 at 16:14

Was there much unburned organic material present? I've discovered when I've left damp grass clippings in a pile for several days, or I am lax in turning over my compost pile. there is a definite ammonia smell present. I think this is a product of anaerobic decomposition of organic material.

Maroboduus - 29-10-2016 at 18:03

Do you just burn seasoned wood in there or do you ever throw in fresh stuff when it's going, or clipping with leaves?

Can you tell if it the smell is the ash, or perhaps and deposits on the inside of the container, like it condensed there when it was burning out and the outside was cooler.

I hate to harp on the whole urine thing, but it's outside, do any large dogs have access?

aga - 29-10-2016 at 23:56

All that goes in there is seasoned olive wood. No pee or other organics at all.

I've never noticed this kind of thing before, and have had a great number of fires.

My suspicion is that it was due to the use of a steel ladle digging into the hot ashes under the burning coals.

I'd best do some experimentation and find out.

j_sum1 - 30-10-2016 at 00:07

Well if you have correctly identified an ammonia smell then that indicates a source of nitrogen somehow. Not sure that the olive wood you describe is a plausible source. So, either an observational error or there is some factor that you are unaware of.

Morgan - 30-10-2016 at 05:19

Another thought or remote outside possibility is if the washer was gunked up with that crap people like to put in the wash. I don't know if they use this in the washer or just the dryer sheets but it came to mind.
"Contemporary fabric softeners are most often based on salts of quaternary ammonium cations. Characteristically, the cations contain one or two long alkyl chains derived from fatty acids.[2] Other cationic compounds can be derived from imidazolium, substituted amine salts, or quaternary alkoxy ammonium salts."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_softener
"She said that when the softener is in the dispenser and it starts spinning it slings some of it out and it sticks to the top of the tub(outer) and stays there cause the water doesn;t get there. She said that she took a putty knife and scraped a lot off hers. She said it was like crisco. In the bottom part she said it was just built up hard gunky stuff ..."
http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2410977/liquid-fabric-s...
http://www.home-air-purifier-expert.com/fabric-softener.html

unionised - 30-10-2016 at 05:51

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Well if you have correctly identified an ammonia smell then that indicates a source of nitrogen somehow. Not sure that the olive wood you describe is a plausible source. So, either an observational error or there is some factor that you are unaware of.

Wood was once living cells and contains some proteins. Timber is about 0.1 % to 1 % nitrogen, and that's plenty to generate a strong smell of ammonia.

The question is how did it survive the fire without being converted to something volatile + lost.

Morgan - 30-10-2016 at 06:29

Maybe if the wood had some beetles or grubs living in it that might contribute nitrogen over time.

unionised - 30-10-2016 at 06:32

I still think the most likely cause of the smell of ammonia is a local cat claiming ownership.

aga - 30-10-2016 at 07:26

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Destructive distillation of wood produces hundreds of compounds

The ash material is extremly fine, and has accumulated over around 4 fires.

Perhaps it's fine enough to exclude the air sufficiently well that part of the ash content gets pyrolysed rather than burnt ?

Sulaiman - 30-10-2016 at 07:55

ammonia and hydrochloric acid fumes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0M-Q65VQHs

just in case it did not come to mind

aga - 30-10-2016 at 12:20

I doubt there'll be be enough ammonia from these ashes to replicate that particular demo.

Having given it a bit of thought, the Nitrogen is the real mystery.

Plenty of hydrogen knocking about from the cellulose, but the Nitrogen ?

The ashes definitely contain some KOH, which apparently can split the cellulose into oxalic acid given the heat, but there seems no obvious pathway from that to something like urea, thence to ammonia.

Does urea smell like ammonia ?

Perhaps i am confusing pissy smells and mistaking it for ammonia ?

Experiment ideas required, suggestions most welcome.

My first thought is to heat some of these ashes in a small cruicible with the lid on to around 300 C for about 10 minutes then whip the lid off, stir it briefly then take a sniff.

The idea being that whatever is in there reacts in an air-starved environment (like the ash pile at the bottom of the fire) then hits fresh air while still hot, somehow producing small quantities of NH₃.

The presence of the iron ladle is probably irrelevant as the entire 'fireplace' is stainless steel.

Edit:

It would be very exciting if it rips the Nitrogen from the Air !

[Edited on 30-10-2016 by aga]

aga - 1-11-2016 at 07:03

11.00g of the same wood ash where the first ammonia-like smell was noticed was loaded into a 50ml porcelain cruicible, half filling it.

This was then heated over a spirit burner with the cover on for 10 minutes.

Lead has been easily melted this way, so the internal temperature must be over 327 C.

The lid was removed and a piece of damp UI paper was held inside the cruicible without touching the ash.

The paper immediately changed to a ph 8~9 colour, indicating the presence of some base in the atmosphere above the hot ashes.

Next, 25g of the ash was placed in a 250ml RBF with a tube leading into a beaker of distilled water to which a few drops of phenolpthalein had been added.

The RBF was heated for 30 minutes.

Bubbles of gas were seen 'coming over', although slowly.

After 1 minute a faint ring of purple was noticed around the end of the glass tube touching the water.

It is possible that this was caused by the presence of some basic material on the glass (that tube was hastily grabbed from the washing-up bucket, unwashed).

The purple ring disappeared completely after 7 minutes, suggesting that the gasses coming from the ashes were acidic at this stage rather than basic, which is in direct contradiction with the result of the cruicible experiment.

No ammonia smell was noticed in either experiment, so now i'm totally confused.

Morgan - 1-11-2016 at 09:45

There're some clips on YouTube of cats attracted to green olives and in this article olive wood bowls, so maybe there's a chance cats would be attracted to olive wood fire pits and thus one source of nitrogen as unionised suggested.
https://books.google.com/books?id=q7v_rDK0uOgC&pg=PA96&a...

Cats and Olivewood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zXKj8uEuE

our cat loves olive wood!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmleiVY8LLU

An oily wood ...
"As much as I enjoyed working with olive wood, I found it to be very oily. I initially turned a salt mill out of olive wood but found that the oils in the wood continued to come out and turn the salt to stone, so to speak. I eventually sealed the interior as much as I could and converted it into a pepper mill. Made a nice mill."
"The natural oil in olive Wood can be a real attribute to the wood depending on how the wood is going to be used. However, in some cases the oil is not a good quality to have. Staining and finishing Olive Wood can be a pain because of the natural oils that are in it. Folks that make tobacco pipes out of Olive Wood stabilize and remove oils by first cutting and drilling their piece to a rough shape and then submerging the rough shaped pieces in a sealed container of denatured alcohol for a week. The denatured alcohol draws out the oils from the pours of the wood making it a much easier wood to stain and finish."
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f6/olive-wood-26859/

Morgan - 1-11-2016 at 10:09

Another variable
http://www.medhealthdaily.com/ammonia-smell-in-nose/

Maroboduus - 1-11-2016 at 11:04

Your results may be being complicated by CO2 emissions. If the ash has absorbed CO2 from the air forming bicarbonates, then these may be coming off when you heat your sample.
You only need 120C to decompose potassium bicarbonate to carbonate and CO2.

aga - 1-11-2016 at 12:21

Hmm.

CO₂ would account for the weak acidity wiping out the weak early phenolphtalein indication in the distillation.

Perhaps a tiny amount of NH₃ is driven off first, then out comes the CO₂.

My liver is still working OK (touch wood) so the only ammonia smell i get is when endogenous ammonia (or a precursor ?) enters the dual front air intake ducts.