73 replies to this topic

[al93535]

Well I have tried and tried to get a good green from the carbonate and all I can come up with is a weak green. I have a few liters of 70% HNO3, and some anhydrous HNO3. I think I will try this method of adding the carbonate to nitric acid until neutralization stops and then let it completely evaporate. Getting myself some nice barium nitrate. Then I can use up to 50% barium, some potassium perchlorate, fuels, and chlorine donor.

[Phoenix]

BTW, last week I checked on the tray of barium nitrate solution, and I appeared to have overshot the mark a bit, as accompanying the layer of crusty barium nitrate on the bottom of the tray, there were an abundance of long needly crystals of what I assume was potassim acetate. I added a little water to redissolve these, and collected the barium nitrate. At the moment it's in a bucket. When I get round to it, I'll redissolve and filter it (it's accumulated several dead flies and other crud whilst evaporating). Don't know the yield yet, but I'll report on that soon.

[al93535]

I have a very acidic powder, I overshot and used all my carbonate before the solution was neutral. I think I need to recrystalize the Ba nitrate. Does anyone know if this will remove the trace HNO3? Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks,

[Rhodri]

I have a very acidic powder, I overshot and used all my carbonate before the solution was neutral. I think I need to recrystalize the Ba nitrate. Does anyone know if this will remove the trace HNO3? Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks,

Hi

You can simply add another carbonate (sodium for example) to neutralize the excess H+

However, you'll get the Na nitrate then which will impart a string yellow.

The best way would be to dilute the soln. you have with copius volumes of water.

Test the pH until around 6.8.

Obvious but hope this helps!

[gilbert pinkston]

over here a fifty pound bag of NH4NO3 is $8 or $9.....a pound dissolved in water and filtered leaves nothing more than a stain on filter paper and a perfectly clear solution....when its boiled with BaCO3 it foams up with a strong ammonia smell.....what could it be other than BaNO3? one step no HNO3 nothing left over but BaNO3 and unreacted BaCO3 anybody else ever tried it?

[alany]

Yeah, takes a bit though, unless you use very ltitle water and watch it closely. Ammonium Nitrate that hasn't been prilled and clay coated is hard to get here, otherwise I'd do it more often. The same trick can be used to making exotic perchlorates, but it seems like a waste of good AP to me.

[gilbert pinkston]

yeah i don't know why anyone would want to use AP like that either i make my perchlorates from the sodium salt but getting BaNO3 for about the same price as BaCO3 and no hazmat fee that's gettin down there right........ then there's the just plain refusal to ship problem.......i think it should work for SrCO3 too.........and as you say it must be watched closely if you drive off all the water with excess ammonium nitrate still there it could cause a problem.......i've bought ammonium nitrate with that crap in it but when dissolved it usually settles out in a day or two

Edited by gilbert pinkston, 01 May 2005 - 01:45 PM.

[Phoenix]

I finally got around to finishing the barium nitrate experiment I began so long ago, having had the solution sitting around since then. I apologise to anyone who expressed an interest in the results of this experiment, but here they are, at last...

The yield was a touch over 200g (200.53g or something) of dense white powder. The theoretical yield I calculated prior to the experiment was 196g, so there is obviously some other material in there. It's likely to be unreacted potassium nitrate, as I added a slight excess, but some will probably also be potassium acetate. I suspect I can remove this with another recrystallisation or two, since my tiny inital batch seemed purer.

I've used a little of this batch in some green stars, which produced a pale, but recognisable green. I suspect this is due to impurities, as the initial batch I mentioned gave a very good green colour in the same composition (one from Weingart).

The results of this trial lead me to conclude that this is a valid method of producing small amounts barium nitrate, although due to the unknown purity of the product, I don't intend to store compositions made with it for any length of time.

[fishy1]

would the same idea work with Strontium Carbonate?
i've tried googling, but can't get the solubilities i need.

[Draco_Americanus]

I thought barium nitrate was hygroscopic to a point? Would that not cause problems will dull color and poor burning or am I a bit off on that?

[Phoenix]

fishy1 - I haven't tried making strontium nitrate, so I'm not sure. Strontium nitrate's solubility is 71g per 100ml at 18*C, whereas barium nitrate's is about 8g per 100ml at the same temperature. Potassium nitrate's solubility is around 35g or so at that temperature, so whilst the barium nitrate crystallises out in preference to it, strontium nitrate may not.

However, strontium nitrate is not needed to produce a recognisable red -and in fact the carbonate is often used in preference anyway, since it is easier to keep dry. Barium carbonate, however, is very hard to produce a good green with, and even making a recognisable green with it is difficult to impossible without metallic fuels, so barium nitrate is a much more useful chemical to be able to make than strontium nitrate.

Draco Americanus - It seemed fairly dry when I made the stars - the weight had stopped decreasing and it wasn't clumpy, plus the stars were dried thoroughly in my good ol' Peltier drying cupboard, which, assuming I'm right about having the hot sink inside the cupboard not reducing its effectiveness, shouldn't be much over 40% relative humidity. I doubt it was residual moisture that caused the problem.

[fishy1]

i have a batch evapourating ATMO, will let you know how it goes.

[fishy1]

6 months after the start of the process, about 1/2 the liquid had evapourated. The liquid was decanted off (after I scooped out the flies and caterpillers) for further evapourating, and I cut out a crust of barium nitrate from the bottom of the tub with a knife. The barium nitrate came off in flat sheets, which were pretty tough. Yield of Ba(NO3)2 was about 130g, but there's still some in solution. Have not purified it as of yet, but a mix of the crusty BN heated up and dried then powdered in pestle+mortar(which incidentaly, took nearly 20mins to get it lump free for a 10g sample) then mixed with red gum burned fast, faster than KNO3. Then, I tried mixing BN/perc/red gum 3:5:1.5 and lighting it, all I got was a blinding white light, so it needs purifying somewhat. Looks promising.

Edited by fishy1, 10 September 2006 - 08:54 PM.

[newtoolsmith]

Hi fishy1,

I didnt read the early posts but I found you asked how to convert strontium carbonate to strontium nitrate.

Well, I did it by using nitric acid, 6.02mol/liter - I think this is approx 35%. This was very cheap, approximately 8 Euro for 20 Litres.

The carbonates ( Sr and Ba) were bought in a ceramic suppliers store, very cheap also, lets say 2.5 Euro per kilo.

In sumary, the nitrates had cost under 3 Euro per kilo.



You can calculate how much acid you need for the wanted amount of carbonate to convert or backwards.


I always used 4 litres of acid and added the needed amount of carbonate.


Take some more carbonate to prevent acid to be left after the reaction. The excess carbonate wont dissolve when the solution is heated and can be filtered off.

Always wear gloves, glasses and plastic cloth to prevent contact with acid drops.

The reactionproduces huge amounts of CO2 gas wich makes lots of foam and little acid drops. This will ruin a concrete floor, so spreed out a plastic foil before.

Put only a small amount of carbonate into the acid. Lets say a teespoon full. It would bubble too much otherwise.

To evaporate the water formed during the reaction and contained in the acid, I used an electric single heater. It took only a few hours - and I made over 10kg Sr(NO3)2 and Ba(NO3)2. I would never be able to wait days, weeks or even months!

Last but not least: BE CAREFUL WITH ACIDS!!

MfG
newtoolsmith

[fishy1]

Where do you buy your HNo3? It's not easy to get here, and especially at that kind of price.