charrd
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sugar dehydration to carbon with alternatives....
howdy ya'll - i was dreamin' last night and figured i might wanna try a sugar - carbon err "synthesis" with "biologically" friendly compounds. I'm
interested in creating carbon in bulk 50+ lbs...and surprisingly, sugar is a lot cheaper than "activated carbon" or "lump charcoal"
Anywho - N-P-K are all "garden" friendly....and there might be a few dehydrating compounds out there with these elements...
I'm wondering if I could add a conc. phosphoric acid to sugar to yield high purity carbon? I'm also wondering if anyone has any info in using "hot
ceramics" as a dehydrating agent.
Last night I sorta envisioned using some sort of "phosporus" containing dehydrating agent used as a "catalyst" with the bulk dehydrating agent
being....hrm bulk clay brick powder
H3P04
sucrose + ceramic ---------> carbon + CO + P04/whatever +etc........
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Geocachmaster
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If you wanted to try and make + purify carbon "just because," then dehydration is certainly an option. However, you wish to make it in bulk, i.e. in
excess of 50 pounds, and for a cheaper price than commercial. I don't think this would be feasible. About three minutes of searching found this, 52 pounds for about $90. I don't know about a good source, but I think that you could find 50 pounds of sucrose for around $25, maybe a
little less. Sugar isn't only carbon though, it's only approximately 42% carbon by mass. Add in the cost of dehydrating agents (there are many), along
with your time/effort and it gets expensive. In addition, the setup to deal with more than 100 pounds of sugar at one time and the processing too
would likely be huge and costly.
In short, you should just buy carbon if you need large quantities. It would not be worth your time or money to try and make 50+ pounds.
(Edit: fixed grammar)
[Edited on 3/4/2017 by Geocachmaster]
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j_sum1
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Well, the classic is using concentrated sulfuric acid. I have not done the stoichiometry but equal volumes of H2SO4 and sucrose is about right. Then
you need to crush, wash and dry.
If you happened to have tens of litres of free sulfuric acid lying around doing nothing then by all means it might be economical. Otherwise, simply
buy your carbon normally or make your own AC from charcoal following standard procedures.
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charrd
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Well...hypothetically...there's a lot of phosphate mining and sugar refining going on in Florida. Cheap sources...
Anywho...if you had a ..."bathtub" - couldn't you just fill that sucker up with sugar and add the acid? ...Maybe on a drip system lol
The resultant carbon appears very fine, brittle and powdery....That is what attracts me to this....I'm NOT interested in using bulk sulfuric
acid...concentrated or otherwise. bulk phosphorus ore? Now that I'm interested in...
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Fluorite
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the other day I was dehydrating sodium bisulfate to the pyrosulfate
and while it's molten I spilled some on a tissue paper that charred it like conc sulfuric
I think this would dehydrate sugar
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Admagistr
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Many years ago I insert a kilogram of glucose into a ten-litre flask and poured one litre of concentrated H2SO4 into the flask, a thick fog formed
and the mixture blackened and foamed, but the carbon obtained had some smell, it is certain that it was polluted with organic compounds, probably also
sulphur organic compounds.
The way to pure carbon would probably be to heat the glucose strongly in a vacuum or under argon and then boil it with some mineral acid,perhaps
HCl...I have read somewhere that chemically pure carbon can be produced this way...
[Edited on 15-4-2023 by Admagistr]
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clearly_not_atara
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Pyrolysis would definitely be the method of choice for OP's desire of putting carbon in his garden (???). Using any sort of acid would likely leave
some acidic residues in the product, which can have damaging effects on plant life.
But he posted this thread six years ago, so it's probably too late now.
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Admagistr
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Quote: Originally posted by clearly_not_atara  | Pyrolysis would definitely be the method of choice for OP's desire of putting carbon in his garden (???). Using any sort of acid would likely leave
some acidic residues in the product, which can have damaging effects on plant life.
But he posted this thread six years ago, so it's probably too late now. |
You are absolutely right, producing carbon in this way for gardening purposes is, shall we say, very impractical... I was following the main idea of
producing pure carbon as a chemical element for general use and especially for the needs of amateur chemists, and I forgot that the questioner wants
to use it in the garden... This is not a gardening forum , I apologize for my
inattention... Traces of acid would have to be removed from the carbon by annealing.
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