Ammonium chloride and sodium chlorate

While waiting for some tin(II)chloride crystals to arrive (and reading) it turns out that i need ammonium chloride and sodium chlorate to follow the book's Stock Pot processing instructions.

Rather than buy these (and wait longer) it appears fairly easy to make both of them with chemicals i already have.

Do any hobby-level refiners make their own reagents, and if so, do you find any difference between them and shop-bought reagents ?

I guess for large-scale refiners it would make no economic sense.

Those chemicals are only needed for concentrated solutions of PGM:s. I have so far only used zinc shavings to cement any PGM:s. Some day when I have enough black powder I'll test refining it.

Göran

Currently i have no idea what might be lurking in my stock pot, so thought it best to follow the instructions to the letter.

Keep in mind that the book was written over 70 years ago. While most of it is still valid, there are a few improvements that have been discussed on this forum. Instead of ammonium chloride, potassium chloride is now recommended.

But as Göran has said, you do not need them right now. Any PGMs in your solutions will be reduced to metals by the copper in the stock pot. Only after you accumulate a large quantity of those metals would you consider redissolving them and using those precipitants to separate them.

Because of the hazardous nature of platinum in particular, we advise most members NOT to attempt to refine them themselves.

Dave

I used to make my own nitric acid, before I manned up and bought in bulk (was tired of soo much work for so little acid).

I still make my own ferrous sulfate though, as the store bought Hi-Yield junk is just that -junk. It's almost all oxidized and brown...not something I want to be adding to the gold I am trying to purify.
The crystals produced when making it yourself are absolutely beautiful, and a sight to be seen.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=14026

Other than that. I buy all my stuff now, while it does feel good to make a lot of the stuff on your own. Sometimes simplicity is best, and ordering the things I need is pretty easy.

You can buy ferrous II sulphate in 25Kg bags very cheaply. Green and lovely. Not worth the time or reagents to make it Toph. Do some Goggling mate it's a cheap as chips.

FrugalRefiner said:

Instead of ammonium chloride, potassium chloride is now recommended.

Click to expand...

Good to know as KCl is easy to buy in the supermarkets here as Lo-Sodium Salt.

For the fun of it, i made some ammonium chloride from ammonium sulphate, sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid.
2 NaOH + (NH₄)₂SO₄ => 2 H₂O + Na₂SO₄ + 2 NH₃, then NH₃ + HCl => NH₄Cl

The appearance of solid crystals is always really satisfying.



When it's fern-like formations from a reaction between a Gas and a Liquid, doubly so.

One recrystallisation, drying, then they should be pure enough to go in a jar on an amateur's shelf.

As this process produces very large volumes of ammonia gas, it should not be done without an adequate fume hood.