Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Potassium nitrite solution

KaliyaK - 15-12-2016 at 11:55

Hello everyone! I have made some potassium nitrite but i cant seem to be able to dry it. I thought on dissolving it all and make a stock solution. How will i be able to determine the concentration of the final solution? Thanks!

Scalebar - 16-12-2016 at 04:34

There's probably easier ways but boiling a known volume down to constant weight ( ie. really really dry )would be one way

Eddygp - 16-12-2016 at 05:36

If it's wet, it will be very difficult to determine the exact concentration without a margin of error. Is there no way you can dry it with drying agents and the sort?

Otherwise, there must surely be some conductivity test with a KNO2 solution to determine the concentration. Either that or check molar UV absorbances of nitrite, check UV and use Beer Lambert Law. From that stock solution of, once you do the UV thing, known conc., you can proceed normally.

[Edited on 16-12-2016 by Eddygp]

JJay - 17-12-2016 at 00:09

I recently saw a procedure on potassium nitrite titration with sulfuric acid and permanganate. It said that it is ordinarily possible to obtain results within 1% if the nitrite is added to a measured quantity of a standard permanganate / sulfuric acid solution.

It should be easy enough to dry potassium nitrite over calcium chloride.

[Edited on 17-12-2016 by JJay]

KaliyaK - 17-12-2016 at 08:03

I have tryed to dry it with sodium hydroxide but it forms a dry layer on top and provents the rest from geting dry. Even with regular steering it was non efective. And heat it to dryness i'm afraid to burn it... Maybe theres a best drying agent, will magnesium chloride be any better? Maybe try to spread the nitrite on a petri dish to have more surface area?

Magpie - 17-12-2016 at 10:21

You should be able to dry your NaNO2 under gentle heat as I did here: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=52&...

And, you should be able to titrate your solution with KMnO4 as already mentioned.

JJay - 18-12-2016 at 09:34

Quote: Originally posted by KaliyaK  
I have tryed to dry it with sodium hydroxide but it forms a dry layer on top and provents the rest from geting dry. Even with regular steering it was non efective. And heat it to dryness i'm afraid to burn it... Maybe theres a best drying agent, will magnesium chloride be any better? Maybe try to spread the nitrite on a petri dish to have more surface area?


You'd want to get it fairly dry first and then spread it out. A petri dish would work, as would the bottom of a large beaker.

You could then put that beaker into a bucket with calcium chloride on the bottom and seal the bucket, stirring the nitrite occasionally. It could take a few days or weeks to obtain a really dry product.

woelen - 19-12-2016 at 00:00

Potassium nitrite is much more hygroscpoic than sodium nitrite. If you keep potassium nitrite in contact with air it may even liquefy, but at least it becomes wet through.

Drying it by spreading it in a petri dish is not going to work. You can heat the material and drive off water, but the disadvantage of this is that part of the material may be oxidized to nitrate. Humid/wet nitrite is slowly oxidized by oxygen from air to form nitrate. This will not destroy all of you nitrite, but it may become impure.

Maybe apply some gentle heating, driving off most of the water and then dry the remaining part in a closed vessel over NaOH or H2SO4? Maybe even CaCl2 works, but I don't know that. Just try it.

JJay - 19-12-2016 at 02:33

PrepChem suggests rinsing off water with ethanol and using calcium chloride as a dessicant: http://www.prepchem.com/synthesis-of-potassium-nitrite/

I can't say with 100% certainty that the procedure works, but it seems reasonable.