Making Sodium Nitrate ?

[lazersteve]

The only thing is, the composition of Calcium Nitrate is not constant. I mean, we don't know how much water is bond with it. Ca(NO3)2 * xH2O
I want to dehydrate it (only a few grams) to know the exact amount of water.

Excellent point Noxx.

Sorry I misunderstood your intentions.

Steve

 

[Noxx]

It's that american humor again Noxx.

He meant if you were going to go to the trouble of trying to make every product instead of buying it why not just make your own drywall and build you a house at the same time.

Oh lol. I taught he was talking about the resulting salt when you make nitric acid with Calcium Nitrate and sulfuric acid. CaSO4 is Plaster of Paris and it is used to make walls.

Oops... :lol:

 

[Irons]

Some day, you can figure out how to make Dry Wall and build yourself a house. :wink:

Are you talking about the Plaster of Paris ? :lol:
Very impossible to filter when in solution lol.

It's that american humor again Noxx.

He meant if you were going to go to the trouble of trying to make every product instead of buying it why not just make your own drywall and build you a house at the same time.

Just good natured fun. I laugh at myself more than anything.

as the Amish say:

Too soon old, too late smart.

 

[Anonymous]

why not just use the sulfuric directly with the CaNO3?

 

[lazersteve]

James,

When adding the sulfuric acid to Calcium Nitrate the Calcium Sulfate formed is very absorbent and tends to suck up all the liquids. This coupled with the heat of the reaction, causes the resulting nitric acid to go up in vapors as it is formed, or to be absorbed by the Calcium Sulfate. The result is that your nitric literally gets trapped in the mix or goes up in smoke.

The Calcium Nitrate reaction would work fine if you don't mind distilling the mixture in the proper glassware setup, but for a quick and easy method it is not as straight forward as the cold Sodium Nitrate routine.

Steve

 

[Lou]

Even distilling the calcium nitrate in a proper setup is not ideal: the calcium sulfate (essentially plaster) formed is hell to remove! It does give more nitric acid though...

 

[Anonymous]

Steve, what if you did not want concentrated nitric, say end product 20 percent or something, CaSO4 is nearly insoluble right?

 

[lazersteve]

James,

When this question was asked earlier today, I set up a spreadsheet which calculates the various reactants and products of the Sodium Nitrate Method and the Calcium Nitrate Method. I actually learned something very interesting from the spreadsheet. I need to review it a little more before posting it, but I'll post it soon.

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Steve, I found something about using oxalic acid but could not remember what thread this was one so I started a new topic but if someone with the power wanted to move it to this thread at his convience it most likely would fit better. :lol:

 

[steveonmars]

Hello guys,
I found a formula on the net about making Sodium Nitrate with Calcium Nitrate.
It goes as follow:

2NaHCO3 + Ca(NO3)2 => 2NaNO3 + CaCO3 + H20 + CO2

NaHCO3 is sodium bicarbonate which is easy to get. The only thing is, the solubility NaHCO3 is low... about 7 grams at 20°C...

I was just wondering if it would work or if I should look into something else...

Thanks

Hi,

Just wondering why you would want to make this, whats it used for?

Still trying to learn more.

Steve

 

[lazersteve]

Sodium Nitrate is a convienent starting material for making nitric acid.

Calcium Nitrate is cheap, holds twice as much nitric, but forms super absorbant calcium sulfate when used directly in the nitric acid reation instead of sodium nitirate. So it is desireable to convert the cheap calcium nitirate into sodium nitrate before making your nitric acid.

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

What if you were only going for dilute nitric, maybe you could get away with going straight for the calcium nitrate.

Jim

 

[lazersteve]

Unfortunately the calcium sulfate formed is so absorbent that twice the water still doesn't help.

You can convert the calcium nitrate to sodium nitrate using the leftover sodium sulfate from the original nitric acid reaction using sodium nitrate.

This is all outline in my updated nitric acid recipe found here:

Closing the Nitric Loop

I currently working on a simple way to recycle the copper nitrate formed after you use the nitric acid to dissolve copper items.

Steve

 

[steveonmars]

Thanks Steve

I've been wodering where to get nitric since everyone seems to say it's hard to find and expensive.

I'll start with watching your video to see if it's even an option for me at this point or maybe just stick with HCL for now. I know there's other threads on making nitric so I can do my research first. i'm taking everything real slow until I learn more but I'm getting there thanks to all of you guys here. I'm disabled and can't work so I've got a lot of time to study this stuff and learn before I dive in. Everthing I've done so far is working fine by following all of your tips and especially your videos, Steve. If I didn't find this site I never would have gotten anywhere.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hi!
I realize this thread has been slow for some time, but I'll give it a go anyway.

Getting Sodium/Potassium Nitrate.

Here it is very hard to get Nitric Acid or Sodium/Potassium/Ammonium Nitrate due to someones previous misuse :-(
Calcium Nitrate seems to be more accessible.
But according to what I see in the forum it is not very well suited for generating Nitric Acid in a practical way.

I found a formula on Google which runs like this: 2Na3PO4 + 3Ca(NO3)2--->6NaNO3 + Ca3(PO4)2

If we can get rid of the Calcium Phosphate after the reaction this could be a way for some of us, since Sodium Phosphate is widely used as an antioxidant in the food industry.

Anybody with Ideas , inputs or comments?

 

[bmgold2]

I looked for a better thread to post this in but, since it got bumped anyway, this is as good a place as any.

This is just something I found online and I never tried it but it sounds interesting. Ammonium nitrate seems to be discouraged here as a way to make nitric acid especially for silver but this might be useful or interesting to some here.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=13181

A Unique Synthesis of Ammonium Nitrate


In lieu of the general lack of ammonium nitrate availability in my area, I have devised a process which utilizes dollar-store items for the easy manufacture of relatively clean ammonium nitrate. I thought I'd share it with the rest of the forum in the event that someone else was also in my situation.

There are three main ingredients as well as a plethora of apparatus needed for this syntheses, all of which can probably be found around the home.

I start with household ammonia (the unscented kind, obviously), which is 5wt% ammonia. To this I add epsom salts, better known as magnesium sulfate, to yield ammonium sulfate and insoluble magnesium hydroxide. After letting the magnesium hydroxide settle out, the solution of ammonium sulfate is then boiled to concentrate it for the next step.

Cheap powdered drain unclogger contains three things: Sodium hydroxide, sodium nitrate, and aluminum turnings. As it turns out, it is incredibly easy to sift the prills of sodium nitrate from the sodium hydroxide (which comes as much smaller prills). The calcium nitrate and aluminum mixture is placed in just enough water to completely dissolve the nitrate, where it can be easily poured from the sunken aluminum turnings. This solution becomes very cold upon the dissolution of the NaNO3, proving that there is minimal sodium hydroxide contamination present. The anti-caking agent also floats to the surface and is easily removed in the decantation.

Finally, the sodium nitrate and the ammonium sulfate are combined and heated, yielding the white precipitate sodium sulfate and ammonium nitrate in solution. This should be settled in the refrigerator as temperature has drastic effects on the solubility of sodium sulfate. The ammonium nitrate solution is then decanted into a dish and desiccated for further use.

In all, I have found it possible to produce ammonium nitrate at a price comparable to purchasing cold packs - about $2 for 50 grams. Although more complicated, it seems to have less impurities than the cheap, yellow-contaminated stuff in instant cold packs. Time to visit the dollar store - my drains are clogged, my kitchen is dirty, and my feet could use a good soak.

-DTM

I haven't researched enough to know if another nitrate (like potassium nitrate) could be substituted and still get ammonium nitrate. What really sounded interesting was the cheap powdered drain cleaner. I would have expected the lye but never thought there might be sodium nitrate which should work for DIY nitric or AR without needing to make ammonium nitrate. The sodium hydroxide would be worth saving too. That is assuming it is as easy to separate the 3 ingredients as the quote above makes it sound.

I checked the MSDS for Draino crystals (probably similar to the cheap unclogger) and it does list both sodium nitrate and sodium hydroxide. Along with those two wanted chemicals, it also lists aluminum flakes AND SODIUM CHLORIDE. That last one might cause problems especially if working with silver is the eventual goal.

Just food for thought. Always a good idea to read the contents of common products. You never know when you might find a new source of refining chemicals without the often high shipping cost.

Quick search found another interesting quote.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=12597#p125820

You can still buy calcium nitrate, it's relatively easily to make the calcium nitrate into sodium nitrate by adding baking soda to a calcium nitrate solution. Just add baking soda in portions until no more insoluble calcium carbonate is formed on further addition.

Most of this was copied and pasted. I have no idea if it is even true. Interesting if it is though especially the last one.