# Nitrate of Soda V Ammonium Sulfate



## heirloomreplacement (Dec 17, 2007)

Being a newbie I have a question that may have been covered somewhere else in this forum.

In Making Nitric acid> I have been using Potasium Nitrate (Salt Petre)and I know it can also be made with Sodium Nitrate ( Nitrate of soda)

But if Nitrate of soda is 15-0-0

and Ammonium Sulfate is 21-0-0 would it do the job for a nitric mix?
would the Nitric be stronger?

I think there is a use for Ammonium Sulfate in refining> but I'm not sure if it could be used to make Nitric Acid or if it has another use that it's better served for if any?

Would the High Sulfer content affect in a negitive way?

at 5 Lbs for 2.00 it is much cheaper to get.

any info would be greatly appreciated

Jim


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## Lou (Dec 17, 2007)

Ammonium sulfate is useless for manufacturing nitric acid unless you're decomposing it to ammonia and doing a Birkeland-Eyde synthesis of nitric acid. 

Ammonium nitrate, however, is just as useful as sodium nitrate for making nitric acid, either via distillation or with Steve's method.


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## aflacglobal (Dec 18, 2007)

How would Ammonium nitrate work lou. I know of the other two, but can Ammonium nitrate be used also?


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## Noxx (Dec 18, 2007)

Why does it would not ?
Aflac, what we want is the Nitrate. You can also use Barium Nitrate but the salts are toxics. It can also be used to make Nitric Acid. The resulting salt would be (NH4)2SO4 or Ammonium Sulfate.

I hope it helps to light your lantern.


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## aflacglobal (Dec 18, 2007)

Well i can buy 50 lbs bags of Ammonium nitrate for about $ 5 . ( 35-0-0 )
I didn't think that this could be used. If it can is the reactions and everything else the same as Potasium Nitrate or Sodium Nitrate?

Are the strenghts and volumes the same?


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## aflacglobal (Dec 18, 2007)

School me


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## lazersteve (Dec 18, 2007)

Ammonium Nitrate is fine if you are going to distill the nitirc acid off, but using my 'cold' method it's not a good choice. 

The main reason is because the resulting ammonium sulfate (70.6 g/100 mL (0 °C) solubility ) salt has a much higher water solubility than the resulting sodium sulfate salt (4.76 g/100 ml (0 °C) solubility). This leaves lots of ammonium ions in your nitirc which can end up forming explosive precious metal compounds.

For best results with the 'cold' no distill nitric acid recipie use sodium nitrate.

Steve


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## aflacglobal (Dec 18, 2007)

I see said the blind man. It can be used. The two others are tailor made for your cold process. Well chilling it won't work. Is their something you could add to remove the excess ammonium sulfate without adding headache to the process.


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## Noxx (Dec 18, 2007)

Well, send me that 50lb bag and I'll teach you 8) :lol:


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## Anonymous (Dec 18, 2007)

I think your best bet to separate the ammonium sulfate from the nitric acid would be to distill it at low temperature in a reflux still. it would take a while but the nitric acid you get (if you did it right) would be *almost* white fuming and in the mid 90's % concentration. :shock:. there is one drawback to this setup however. the more nitric acid you pull out of the solution, the less concentrated your final product will be. :?


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## Lou (Dec 19, 2007)

White fuming only occurs if your distillation is done in the dark and with vacuum assist. For our intents and purposes, such 90%+ concentrations are hazardous, so azeotropic distillation of the 66% stuff would be just fine.


Ammonium sulfate has more solubility than sodium sulfate, but that is easily remedied by adding more sulfate ions to the solution, that is when the common ion effect works to your advantage. I've never used ammonium nitrate for making nitric acid, but I imagine it would be ideally suited for distillation.


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## Irons (Dec 19, 2007)

I react the Ammonium nitrate with Calcium Hydroxide first.

This gives Calcium Nitrate plus Ammonia Gas which is useful elsewhere.

The Calcium Nitrate is then reacted with Sulfuric Acid to give Calcium Sulfate and HN03.

Using an excess of Calcium Hydroxide makes sure there is no residual NH3. It's cheap, so the extra cost is only a few cents.

You can either let it sit untill the Ammonia in solution evaporates off or heat it to drive it off. There will be no Ammonium ion remainig if done properly.

For me, the Calcium Nitrate is a byproduct of Ammonia generation.

If you don't need the Ammonia right away, you can dissolve it in water to make Ammonium Hydroxide, which you will need to get rid of any Silver Chloride in your precipitated Gold, or bubble it into HCl to make Ammonium Chloride.

Calcium Nitrate is also great Tomato food to prevent blossom end rot.

Everything but the squeal.


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## austexjwlry (Feb 12, 2008)

Aflac,

I have been busy and away for a while. How have you been?

Have you considered using a nitrification process used by wastewater treatment facilities? Where you bubble air through a diffuser or membrane into an ammonia solution & let nitrifying bacteria convert more than 95% of the ammonia-nitrogen into nitrate-nitrogen.

I thought you could dissolve ammonium nitrate fertilizer with as little water as possible in a plastic 55 gallon barrel, siphon into another barrel after letting solids settle. Then add air bubbles and bacteria, let them work all they will. Then use Steve's cold method for nitric acid.

You could possibly even use urea 46-0-0. I had this idea over a year ago but local sewage plant won't let me in to sample their bacteria. The bacteria may be naturally occuring like yeast, as they treat this effluent in open air pits. If I could get a small amount I'd feed it to keep it alive sort of like keeping bread starter. Like I say this was just an idea I haven't pursued it.

Regards,
Wayne


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## aflacglobal (Feb 12, 2008)

Thanks austexjwlry.

I never thought of that. :idea:


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## austexjwlry (Feb 26, 2008)

Hey Aflac,

In the book The Sampling And Assay of the Precious Metals By E.A. Smith 2nd ed. page 251. They write about an immersion method for removing silver plate first discovered by Keir in 1790. Where you cover the silver plated item with as little as possible strong sulphuric acid previously heated to 100 to 110 degrees C. Finely powdered nitre is then sprinkled over the surface of the acid a little at a time to facilitate removal of the silver deposit. Chemical reaction results in the liberation of small amounts of nitric acid that facilitates the solution of deposit. This is done without electricity.

When my silver/gold cell becomes saturated I used to dilute in water as per instructions etc. at that time. Now I think adding potassium nitrate to sludge and remaining sulphuric would make use of it by converting it to weak nitric acid, killing it at the same time, instead of wasting it and removing more of the remaining base metals in the process. 

Wayne


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