17 replies to this topic

[Pirotecnia]

When i were living in Portugal, was easy to me to obtain Potassium nitrate. Now, i'm living in Brazil, and here is more difficult to get this magic compound!

Then, i found a source of kno3, and now i need your help to purify it. The fertilizer is a composition of 32% of nitrogen and 1% of potassium oxide. The rest of the composition i think that are impurities.

Have you some ideas of how can i extract pure kno3 from this? For 1 kilo of this fertilizer, how much kno3 could i get?

Below, somos photos of the fertilizer called "salitre", in english, "salpeter"

Thank you!!

Attached Files

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Edited by Pirotecnia, 09 October 2014 - 08:04 PM.

[Mumbles]

From those values, and a little digging, it looks like you have a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate.  Given the K2O values, it looks like it is mostly sodium nitrate.  1% K2O is about 97% NaNO3 and 3% KNO3. 

[taiwanluthiers]

By the way sodium nitrate still makes good bp, it might be a bit hygroscopic though. It is useless for anything of color other than orange (but actually, kno3 isn't really useful for color stars if you think about it)

[schroedinger]

If it is sodium nitrate, just boil 84 g of it with, 74 g of pottasium chloride.
The formed sodium chloride will precipate first during boiling down, take it out and you will get your kno3. But It's not very easy to tell the point when the right point is reached.
Much easier (but more expensive) would be to treat the solution of sodium nitrate with pottasium oxalate.

[WSM]

From those values, and a little digging, it looks like you have a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate.  Given the K2O values, it looks like it is mostly sodium nitrate.  1% K2O is about 97% NaNO3 and 3% KNO3. 

 

A wikipedia search yields:

 

"On industrial scale it is prepared by the double displacement reaction between sodium nitrate and potassium chloride.

 

NaNO₃ (aq) + KCl (aq) → NaCl (aq) + KNO₃ (aq)"

 

If you can find a source for potassium chloride, this process may allow you to make your own KNO₃. The trick will be making the resulting potassium nitrate sodium free (difficult but possible; it's done industrially).

 

WSM

[Pirotecnia]

Thanks people!

 

Today, i bought another box, this time with a mix of 15% Nitrogen and 14% of Potassium oxide. Can i mix the content of this box with the content of the other box and then do the procedure with the Potassium Chloride?

 

Thanks!

[WSM]

Thanks people!

Today, i bought another box, this time with a mix of 15% Nitrogen and 14% of Potassium oxide. Can i mix the content of this box with the content of the other box and then do the procedure with the Potassium Chloride?

Thanks!

 

I don't see why not, nothing has changed besides the percentages (all the same materials are there).

 

WSM

[Pirotecnia]

Hi,

 

Fortunately, i got a source of KNO3 almost pure. Although, this KNO3 comes with anticake aditive. Is it prejuditial to make a good Black Powder? Is there some way to remove it?

 

Thanks!

[schroedinger]

Well most often atca is SiO2 with is now problem. You could get rid of it by dissolving the kno3 and filtrating, but i wouldn't do that it doesn't harm and easens the handling after some storage time

[Pirotecnia]

Thanks everyone!

[smokeytech]

As a caveat to this question, does anybody know a good fertilizer in the US that you can use to extract KNO3?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[schroedinger]

Get stump remover, no extraction needed, buy at skylighter.com or other pyro supplier or even better find a pyro club nearby and order together with them.

[gregh]

Kelp4less.com is fairly cheap. I got 25lb for $37 and free shipping.

 

https://www.kelp4les...assium-nitrate/

Edited by gregh, 24 October 2014 - 07:17 PM.

[Milyan720]

It doesnt harm to recystalise it though

[WSM]

Hi,

Fortunately, i got a source of KNO3 almost pure. Although, this KNO3 comes with anticake aditive. Is it prejuditial to make a good Black Powder? Is there some way to remove it?

Thanks!

 

For BP or rockets, the anticake doen't matter. I'm told silicon dioxide interferes with glitter, but I haven't noticed any problems with it.  If the potassium nitrate is fine enough, just use it and see how it works for you. "The proof is in the pudding"

 

WSM

[pyrojig]

Pudding sounds good..... hhhmmm May have to try pudding stars  .  I too  have noticed that the nitrate with anti cake is not noticeably diff . from the one w/o. Never tried the anti-cake in glitter comps. It just makes more sense to just freshly mill nitrate for glitter anyways . If your milled stored stuff is clumping just rub it through a screen . 

[smokeytech]

Hey thanks guys, appreciate it.

[MadMat]

I get my KNO3 from Dudadiesel. $17.99 for 10 lbs. Their MSDs states 99.8% purity. They have other options, from 1  up to 50 lb bags. It is prilled, but 10 seconds in the blender and I'm go to go

Edited by MadMat, 04 October 2018 - 09:00 PM.