Making Nitrate With Electricity

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  • čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
  • Today, we have an interesting synthesis to try. The electrolysis of ammonia to the nitrate ion at near room temperature seems to be possible under the right conditions (and these conditions seem reasonably easy to make), so we give it a go.
    Ultimately, we aren’t able to make much nitrate, but there’s enough (~400mg) to separate out from the reaction mix, and the yield isn't absolutely terrible.
    I think this is a pretty cool reaction, because it shouldn’t be exceedingly difficult to scale up the process to make reasonable quantities of nitrate, and the only reactants used are ammonia, water, and electricity.
    You can find the original sciencemadness post here:
    www.sciencemadness.org/whispe...
    You can find my video on making ammonia here:
    • An Ammonia Generator
    You can find my video on making potassium hydroxide here:
    • Potassium Hydroxide - ...
    You can find my video on making basic copper carbonate here (be warned, it's an old one):
    • Copper From Waste
  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 174

  • @emilmckellar4932
    @emilmckellar4932 Před rokem +13

    the hand makes me think of Sesame street. "Today kids we will be making the NO3- ion. Dont bother your mom when she enjoys her wine just make some nitric acid with us"

    • @front2760
      @front2760 Před 3 měsíci

      Just watched a different one before this but the hand was there to.

  • @Slowly_Going_Mad
    @Slowly_Going_Mad Před 2 lety +9

    How have I missed this? I have been wondering if this was even possible and here it is. Wow. Excellent cover on this and good video. Thank you.

  • @xunicholas165
    @xunicholas165 Před rokem +2

    Please make more videos, I can't live without them!

  • @kyliewynne638
    @kyliewynne638 Před 3 lety +52

    Would love to see this scaled up ☺️

    • @ChristmasEve777
      @ChristmasEve777 Před 2 lety +5

      His first electrolyzer was a good scaled-up version, actually. He only needed to put a lot more amps through it and convert all of that ammonia and potassium hydroxide. To pull more amps without drastically increasing the voltage, he could move the electrodes as close together as possible and use much bigger and flatter electrodes.

  • @drmarine1771
    @drmarine1771 Před 2 lety +1

    Great effort mate. Keep them coming.

  • @jimparsons6803
    @jimparsons6803 Před rokem +2

    Liked the demo. And the general approach. Thanks. Garage style chemistry. One of my Professors, back in the day, was an Electro-Chemist. Knew really a lot about batteries and corrosion. I learned a lot from him. One of the better, more portable lessons was skepticism.

  • @schinderiapraemeturus6239
    @schinderiapraemeturus6239 Před 2 lety +11

    very interesting. thoughts for scaling up, increase surface area of cathode/anode, perhaps a copper sheet or copper piping smashed down to form a rectangular surface. Perhaps a mild steel container used for the outside housing so the container becomes the anode surface. And I am a big fan of using small solar cells for running electrolysis reactions

  • @koukouzee2923
    @koukouzee2923 Před 3 lety +8

    That's brilliant
    Keep up the good work mate

  • @CatboyChemicalSociety
    @CatboyChemicalSociety Před 2 lety +4

    im now doing this btw and also trying out stainless steel electrode aswell because rather not have lead nanoparticles or other being an issue.
    I have made a few changes tho.
    1. using urea rather than ammonia because urea wont fuck off and evaporate away and also wont cross the membrane easily.
    2. Urea decomposes at the anode chamber into CO2 which makes carbonate.
    3. Sodium hydroxide used instead of potassium hydroxide.
    4. boiling down the mixed salt solution then adding acetic acid since hydrochloric cannot be used
    Acetic is fine to use overall since there isnt a huge likelihood for it to react in solution.
    5. adding KCl to the mix to precipitate out KNO3 in a hot saturated mixed salt solution with everything else being very soluble except KNO3.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety +2

      Love it! I'm keen to see how it turns out

    • @KallePihlajasaari
      @KallePihlajasaari Před 2 lety

      Yep, Urea solution is available in most locales as a reasonable quality reagent for use as Ad-Blue in Diesel engines. This would be my favourite source material. I think Urea should be easier to extract from urine rather than waiting for bacteria to convert it to Ammonia.

    • @f4grxsebastien483
      @f4grxsebastien483 Před rokem

      Can you elaborate a bit more? diy cosmetics shop here has quite pure and cheap urea. I am very interested in your experiment. Did you need to do that at a cold temperature? That is the bit that bothers me. a room temperature solution would be ideal. Whats the use of acetic acid in your experiment?

    • @f4grxsebastien483
      @f4grxsebastien483 Před rokem

      @@KallePihlajasaari I leave piss chemistry to nile red. I think I prefer the smell of pure ammonia, lol

    • @Tridenux
      @Tridenux Před 4 měsíci

      hey mister, can you make a video on it?

  • @bigjay875
    @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

    Great winter project

  • @comando1911
    @comando1911 Před 3 lety +5

    Fantastic work my friend! Keep up the awesome work! We need more chemistry channels!!! Keep spreading information!

  • @wonderwang1585
    @wonderwang1585 Před 3 lety +3

    Test of nitrate by copper oxidation in acidic medium, i learned it in high school 50 years ago , finally it has a way to apply to.

  • @agritech802
    @agritech802 Před 2 lety

    Excellent video, thanks for sharing

  • @6alecapristrudel
    @6alecapristrudel Před 3 lety +15

    "...because we're doing electrochemistry and it's just gonna work anyway"
    Have you tried to get a bright metal plating yet?

    • @chuckles1808
      @chuckles1808 Před 3 lety +5

      That line made me laugh, I've got a bad history with electrochemistry.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety +8

      I haven't actually done any metal plating at this stage (aside from a tiny copper plating experiment I did way back in 2017).
      I'm honestly not particularly knowledgeable on proper metal plating, so I've kind of avoided the topic so far. I'll definitely cover it one day, but it'll be a long time before I've gathered enough info on the topic to make content about it.

    • @f4grxsebastien483
      @f4grxsebastien483 Před rokem

      Well you're hard, metal plating is a separate art.

  • @geniusdude8975
    @geniusdude8975 Před 3 lety +3

    U have my full support

  • @jozefnovak7750
    @jozefnovak7750 Před 2 lety

    Super! Beatiful! Thank your very much!

  • @pedestrianrights1257
    @pedestrianrights1257 Před 2 lety

    Science is a type of bravery. Good job.

  • @edwardvassell4371
    @edwardvassell4371 Před rokem +1

    would you consider doing the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide from water using tin electrodes or the manganese dioxide catalyzation of ammonia to nitrate?

  • @Unmannedair
    @Unmannedair Před 3 měsíci

    You can use freeze fractional distillation to increase the concentration of store-bought ammonia for your starter product.

  • @d.jensen5153
    @d.jensen5153 Před 2 lety +8

    Very interesting! I've never seen this before.
    The approach I've always wanted to try would involve a large plastic bucket filled with urea/water solution into which a sack of landscaping pumice was added. An aquarium pump and an airstone would be used to oxygenate and circulate the solution.
    Over the course of a couple of months I would expect nitrifying bacteria to convert the NH3 to NO3-. The pumice would provide a substrate with lots of surface area for the bacteria to anchor to. Perhaps a bit of compost added at the beginning would inoculate the batch.
    I don't need the KNO3 - it's abundant here - I'd just be doing it just to see if it worked. While it would take some time, it would be very hands-off and would require very little energy. If it succeeded, it might produce a lot of nitrate. If it failed, I'd still have fertilizer for the lawn.
    Perhaps the pH would have to be monitored, and if it got too low, KOH would be added as needed.

    • @bromisovalum8417
      @bromisovalum8417 Před 2 lety

      Make a "nitre bed" like they did in the days of the civil war. Collect pee and manure, let it ferment in heaps for a year then extract nitre from that with boiling water

    • @d.jensen5153
      @d.jensen5153 Před 2 lety +1

      @@bromisovalum8417 I've read the entire document written by Joseph LeConte in 1862. It's fascinating and informative! But its methods are a wee bit bucolic, anachronistic, and desperate.

    • @KallePihlajasaari
      @KallePihlajasaari Před 2 lety +1

      I love this as an idea. One could take a tiny 1% fraction of the circulating water perhaps and bring it to a boil while capturing the evolved gas in a chilled water container that could be slowly replaced when it reaches a high enough concentration. If a steady state can be achieved it could work as long as the weather holds.

    • @Preyhawk81
      @Preyhawk81 Před 2 lety

      and? any success?

    • @Preyhawk81
      @Preyhawk81 Před rokem +1

      you can buy nitrobacter starter kit for aquaristic use. So you dont need to bring impurities to the pumic.

  • @henricoderre
    @henricoderre Před 10 měsíci

    Hi Harry. I used a magnesium anode electrode and carbon cathode electrode to precipitate less reactive metals out of solution, Will magnesium also be extracted? Or, is it excluded from the extraction.

  • @barriehemming1189
    @barriehemming1189 Před 8 měsíci

    very good

  • @bigjay875
    @bigjay875 Před 2 lety +2

    Just came across your Chanel the other day and it has quickly jumped up to the top 5 chemistry channels I like to watch keep up the good work,. But quick question, and I would love to hear other people's views I need to buy a DC power source or converter and I'm not quite ready to buy a welder, what brand or models have you all had good luck with

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety +1

      A simple lab bench power supply will serve you well as a DC power source, usually in the price range of $50-100. If you don't want to spend that much money, you can also salvage an ATX power supply from an old desktop computer (though these don't offer controllable voltage or current).

    • @a.kjfhkziujsfdgbskjxfyhgfl2332
      @a.kjfhkziujsfdgbskjxfyhgfl2332 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience you can hook them up to a cheap buck regulator with current control and use a multimeter to set it

    • @pieterveenders9793
      @pieterveenders9793 Před rokem +1

      @@ScrapScience It's not that hard to hack an ATX computer power supply into an adjustable power supply, especially for someone with some basic electronics knowledge. All you need to do is look up the schematic for your ATX, and using that find out the location of the feedback section. By replacing the feedback resistors with a potentiometer you can make the ATX into an adjustable power supply. Just make sure you turn it into a 1-12V adjustable power supply and not anything over 12V, as the capacitors are not meant for a voltage much higher than that and will pop. You could of course replace the capacitors with 25V, 35V or even 50V electrolytic capacitors, but for electrolysis that's utterly useless because you never use more than the original 12V in any type of electrolysis anyway, and often even just a couple of volts.

  • @timothyknoefler9198
    @timothyknoefler9198 Před rokem

    Nice! 👍

  • @alllove1754
    @alllove1754 Před 10 měsíci +1

    I saw somewhere that someone used gelatin as a diaphragm component, two chambers, a little tube filled with gelatinized electrolyte and essentially both anode and cathode produced intended elements (it was a sodium hydroxide and chlorine generator)

    • @jastintheceooffinanasapost6204
      @jastintheceooffinanasapost6204 Před 7 měsíci

      Actually the guy from the video did that, so maybe you saw a posterior video

    • @alllove1754
      @alllove1754 Před 7 měsíci

      Let me make what I was saying visually clear, because although he got a success, I was referring to the method I witnessed string success with: picture two cylindrical salt shakers, one for salt, one for pepper, but both emptied out. Now both have a hole cut into their sides (plastic shakers) and this hole has a short piece of drinking straw bridging both of them, like an "H". Inside that straw you can put the gelatinized substrate, or even use wet toilet paper jammed in there. They were making chlorine and lye, but their focus was lye. I think this is cool, that you can make ammonia become nitrate. I've even an interesting paper on making hydrazine with electricity (mercury cathode, hydrazinium amalgamation going on). Hope I cleared up what I doted on earlier.

  • @urgot-bo1lz
    @urgot-bo1lz Před 10 měsíci

    Would homemade glass welded distillation setup hold up?

  • @dpasek1
    @dpasek1 Před 8 měsíci +7

    You made Schweizer's reagent with the Cu hydroxide and ammonia. This is a solvent for cellulose, so you really need to use a different material than paper for your separator.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 8 měsíci +3

      Thanks for pointing that out! I never thought of that.

    • @Unmannedair
      @Unmannedair Před 3 měsíci

      I've never heard of that, but it's sounds like a good thing to know. I'll look it up. Thanks

  • @firas4912
    @firas4912 Před 3 měsíci

    Great information, but low yeled reaction . Thank you very much

  • @bromisovalum8417
    @bromisovalum8417 Před 2 lety +5

    Why not use a Tyvek envelope as diaphragm? Tyvek is cheap and semipermeable, air can penetrate it but not water. So that should make it ideal for use as diaphragm in electrolysis. It's also very resistant against acids, bases and organic solvents.

    • @KallePihlajasaari
      @KallePihlajasaari Před 2 lety

      That would be great but odd that it is not more popular as it is a cost effective commodity product.

  • @myth-termoth1621
    @myth-termoth1621 Před 2 lety +1

    Oxidation of cupramine ? Cool !

  • @user-pp3yi5tv7l
    @user-pp3yi5tv7l Před 3 lety +2

    Very nice video. I'm going to try this myself if I can get my hands on KOH and CuSO4.

    • @danieljohnson3024
      @danieljohnson3024 Před 3 lety +1

      I've made copper sulfate from Epsom salt and copper electrode. Get lots of magnesium hydroxide as a fine precipitate that is a pain to deal with, but it's doable.

    • @user-pp3yi5tv7l
      @user-pp3yi5tv7l Před 3 lety +2

      @@danieljohnson3024 Thanks, I did the same but with sodium bisulfate a while ago. Unfortunately it forms sodium sulfate which is also water soluble and it's hard to separate. I eventually got almost pure CuSO4 through fractional crystallisation. I ended up with roughly 20g.

    • @BackYardScience2000
      @BackYardScience2000 Před 3 lety

      You can easily find both on ebay for very cheap.

    • @user-pp3yi5tv7l
      @user-pp3yi5tv7l Před 3 lety

      @@BackYardScience2000 I know, thanks. In Germany there is an online shop dedicated to chemicals and labware which is quite cheap. 1kg of CuSO4 costs ~8€ vs. eBay ~14€. In the future I will order from them.

    • @f4grxsebastien483
      @f4grxsebastien483 Před rokem

      @@danieljohnson3024 I am currently making copper sulfate with epson salt. clay pot, copper anode and cathode, about one liter of solution and 200g of epsom salt in each cell. It seems to work, I am currently concentrating the sulfate solution and letting it crystallize. I boiled two batches (around 2 liters) To be sure the anode solution did not contain magnesium sulfate anymore, I let the reaction run for very long, and the cathode started growing copper hydroxide as well. So I have BOTH magnesium and copper hydroxide at the cathode. I was scratching my head to separate them and recover the copper.
      After basic wikipedia/google search, I found that ammonia solution will complex the copper but NOT the magnesium! And an attempt (outside, damn that stinks!) showed that yes, the solution turns beautifully blue and the magnesium hydroxide can be filtered out.
      So I think this is a good method to get copper ammonium complex of correct quality for use in this experiment, which I will try as soon as I get a smaller clay pot lol.
      I am not sure the copper sulfate I obtain is actually free of any remaining magnesium, but recrystallization should help, since epsom salt is very soluble, probably much more than copper sulfate.

  • @petevenuti7355
    @petevenuti7355 Před 7 měsíci +1

    I too found it hard to believe that it would actually work! Particularly the question of why hasn't it been done before or done more before in hundreds of years!!
    I'm going to ask around about more conclusive tests and try myself!
    And if this works I don't see why electrolytic reduction of nitrate to nitrite wouldn't

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 7 měsíci +2

      If you're looking for more info on the topic, this paper came out not long after I published this video:
      doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202101557
      This goes much deeper into the mechanisms and possible reaction products than I ever could.

  • @darianballard2074
    @darianballard2074 Před 2 lety +2

    Cool video by the way 😀

  • @nivekakninblarg8076
    @nivekakninblarg8076 Před 2 lety +4

    All the most difficult reactions seem to involve unstable chemicals that are difficult to extract.

    • @alexwang982
      @alexwang982 Před rokem +1

      Yeah thats why they’re unstable

    • @nivekakninblarg8076
      @nivekakninblarg8076 Před rokem

      @@alexwang982This one is unstable because it's a condensation reaction.

    • @alexwang982
      @alexwang982 Před rokem

      @@nivekakninblarg8076 yes, and by definition all unstable things are hard to extract

  • @patrickbowen9395
    @patrickbowen9395 Před 2 lety

    Would you be able to use copper sulfate as well?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety +1

      Yep, the sulfate ions shouldn't interfere here.

  • @dennisford2000
    @dennisford2000 Před 2 lety

    How much cuco3 ? Maybe smelt it?

  • @lazychris2000
    @lazychris2000 Před 6 měsíci

    6:00 The device you used for electrolysis is pretty cool looking! Is it homemade?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 5 měsíci +1

      I'm afraid it's not homemade, but it was extremely useful when I didn't have the budget for a lab bench power supply.
      It's just a simple $15 buck converter (with controllable voltage/current) from Ebay.

  • @johnslugger
    @johnslugger Před 5 měsíci +1

    *_Converting ammonia (NH3) into nitrate ions (NO3-) at the anode. SIMPLE ELECTRON LOSS._*
    Ammonia (NH3): Ammonia is a compound that consists of nitrogen and hydrogen. It's often found in household cleaners and fertilizers.
    Anode: The anode is the positive electrode in an electrolytic cell, where electricity is applied to drive a non-spontaneous chemical reaction.
    Oxidation: Oxidation is a process where a substance loses electrons. In the context of ammonia, the nitrogen in ammonia is oxidized.

    • @Tridenux
      @Tridenux Před 4 měsíci

      Cam we urea by this way ?

  • @geniusdude8975
    @geniusdude8975 Před 3 lety +1

    Cool

  • @CatboyChemicalSociety
    @CatboyChemicalSociety Před 3 lety +5

    u should also try using Ir-Ta MMO it would easily be usable with less crud but considerably more expensive.
    Paper definitely would be the best choice here or any NF membrane would work too which is just coating paper or fiberglass in nitrocellulose or PVC with no need for any further treatment.
    The copper somewhat prevents the decomposition of nitrate on the anode but copper hydroxide or oxide would be a better choice.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety +1

      Thanks for the tips!
      I've always kind of wanted to get an Ir-Ta MMO anode, so I suppose this'll be a good excuse to finally get one. :)
      It seems like paper definitely does a pretty good job, much better than I expected honestly.
      I'm interested as to why copper hydroxide/oxide makes a better choice for the catalyst than the carbonate additive though. I just assumed that they would all work the same once the tetraammine complex forms in solution. Why does it make things different?

    • @CatboyChemicalSociety
      @CatboyChemicalSociety Před 3 lety +4

      @@ScrapScience copper carbonate maybe the reason why you ended up with some potassium carbonate at the end so if you instead use copper hydroxide theres less chance of that.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety +1

      Ah I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

    • @Tridenux
      @Tridenux Před 4 měsíci

      Sir @CatBoy 😢😮, you are too much professional at this topic, can you please make a video by using, urea, carbon rod, sodium,

  • @karolus28
    @karolus28 Před 3 lety +1

    cool

  • @usefulemptiness2410
    @usefulemptiness2410 Před 5 měsíci

    Isn't the ammonia solution basic enough?
    Do you lose product in the form of ammonium nitrate that stays in the solution?
    (I'm not a chemist by far, so please excuse newbie questions)

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 5 měsíci +1

      These are actually great questions!
      As little as I know about the actual mechanism of ammonia oxidation here, I can actually answer these ones.
      First of all, the ammonia solution is probably basic enough at the start of the experiment, that’s correct, but when most of the ammonia has turned into nitrate, we would lose the basicity. Adding potassium hydroxide solves this issue, since it can be added in excess. Also, ammonia solution by itself is actually not very conductive, since most of it does not ionise when dissolved in water. So, adding potassium hydroxide helps with conductivity too.
      The formation of ammonium nitrate is also hindered by the presence of potassium hydroxide. In strongly basic conditions, the formation of the ammonium ion is hindered. In this case, a mixture of potassium hydroxide and ammonium nitrate would simply rather exist in solution (for the most part) as ammonia and potassium nitrate.
      Hope that makes sense, but let me know if not!

    • @usefulemptiness2410
      @usefulemptiness2410 Před 5 měsíci

      @@ScrapScience Thank you for encouragement and a long, nice informative answer.
      My spontaneous ideas reading your answer is that the copper catalyst would have solved the conductivity problem. If nitrates at large were the desired end product they might be more useful in the form of ammonium nitrate. But then tetraamine copper nitrate sounded like an even worse possibility to lose product. So, your points ring true from those views as well, if my ideas are close to what may happen.

  • @bigjay875
    @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

    Can't you buy KNa at the hardware store as a stump remover product or am I thinking about something else?

    • @bigjay875
      @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

      The stump remover is what I use when I make my farmer flash powder

    • @bigjay875
      @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

      The stump remover is what I use when I make my farmer flash powder

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety +3

      Nope, potassium nitrate stump remover is not available in most countries (as far as I know, it's only sold in the USA and maybe Canada, though there are probably some others). Nitrates of any kind are not an over-the-counter product where I live.

    • @bigjay875
      @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience I'm sorry to hear that I had a blast withe stuff when I was a kid I wish I could help you out but don't want to get you in trouble

    • @bigjay875
      @bigjay875 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience say any idea on a good power source to do electrolysis

  • @Prchemist06
    @Prchemist06 Před 3 lety +2

    Can I use ammonium chloride instead of ammonium hydroxide instead? Because I don't have any ...

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety

      Since I'm not certain on the reaction mechanism, I'm not entirely sure (I do think it's unlikely though).
      Provided you do it in a basic enough solution (with enough potassium hydroxide), the ammonium ions will tend to form ammonia anyway, so it's possible that it might work. However, the chloride ions are very likely to interfere with the anode reaction and will also make things difficult to crystallise out. Additionally, I'm not sure how you'd form the catalyst complex unless you have plain ammonia.
      You can actually make ammonia by the reaction of ammonium chloride and sodium hydroxide. I have a video on that topic linked in the description. (the video uses ammonium sulfate instead of ammonium chloride but the reaction works the same)

    • @Prchemist06
      @Prchemist06 Před 3 lety

      @@ScrapScience thanks,but I had tried it 100 times and it failed I don't know why it doesn't produce any hydroxide. Do I have to heat the solution too ?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety

      Yep, you definitely need to heat the reaction to drive off most of the ammonia. Using as little water as possible will help too.

    • @Prchemist06
      @Prchemist06 Před 3 lety +1

      @@ScrapScience okay,what is stiochemitry for producing 150ml or 250 ml of 25% ammonium hydroxide .

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 3 lety +2

      You can't really work out the perfect stoichiometry, since the reaction will give you a highly variable yield.
      To get 250mL of 25% ammonium hydroxide, a ballpark figure is to use around 150g of NH4Cl and around 120g of NaOH.
      If you want the '25%' figure to be in terms of ammonia instead of ammonium hydroxide, you can use twice the amount of reactants.

  • @cristiii7605
    @cristiii7605 Před rokem

    Is there a problem if the temperature is a bit higher?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před rokem

      Based on some research that came out a little after I made this video, the synthesis still apparrently works at room temperature. I'm yet to try it though.

  • @MichaelWiberg-nh5cd
    @MichaelWiberg-nh5cd Před 5 měsíci

    Exelnt show very important research should be made to dial data in but I liked your show.

  • @Jonodrew1286
    @Jonodrew1286 Před rokem

    👌🙏👍Good proof of concept but time consuming - KSO4 + Ca(No3)2 is messy but much easier more or less - the resultant gypsum can be washed a few times - (pain in the ass) but kilned and used with Al and flour of Sand for the extraction of large chunks of pure silicon 👌👌

  • @Preyhawk81
    @Preyhawk81 Před rokem

    Another methode of making nitrates near no one knows is the oxidation of ammonia on alkalien survaces OH groups oxidize to nitrate on high speed at 250C and above near one to one. The stroner the OH Group, faster goes the reaction . CaOH istn as good as KOH. presence of copper , nickel , Mn, Silver, ions catalyze also this reaction. Oxides doestn work it must be hydroxides.
    Karl A. Hofmann wrote an work about it me be you can finde an english version in the web. I think the mechanism is the same as for the anodic oxidation .

  • @edwinsalisbury83
    @edwinsalisbury83 Před 2 lety +2

    I actually tried to do this with the copper catalyst and it ended up not working. Then I remembered, I have a platinum anode which already is a catalyst, so just for fun I did it without the copper catalyst and I ended up producing something which looks like dirty potassium nitrate solution. The ammonia smell is gone, I’ll have to see whether any nitrate crystallizes out. I was using a clay pot as a diaphragm. Also I forgot how smelly ammonia was.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety

      I was told at some point that platinum is generally quite good at anodically decomposing nitrate ions, so I haven't bothered trying to use a Pt anode for this reaction.
      Nonetheless, I wouldn't be surprised if you got a good yield anyway, since nobody seems to really know what's going on with the reaction overall.

    • @edwinsalisbury83
      @edwinsalisbury83 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience just a curious question. Why didn’t you use a clay pot as a diaphragm for this one? Were you trying follow the paper as close as possible?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety

      That was the main reason. Additionally, clay pots are rather restrictive on the current flow compared to other diaphragm options, and this process doesn't require perfect separation of the two chambers. Using paper allowed for a lower cell voltage (increasing the energy efficiency) and was easier to implement on a small scale.

    • @edwinsalisbury83
      @edwinsalisbury83 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience aah that makes sense. Sorry if it seems like I’m in the comments sections in all of your videos. I’m just gathering more information so I can repeat some of your experiments except with a platinum anode and some other modifications. I want to see if the platinum could help as a catalyst for some of these reactions and help to increase the yield and efficiency of these electrochemical processes. Then I am going to see whether My knowledge could help improve things.
      I could even make a document cataloguing my results for repeating and improving your electrochemical processes ( if I do go down this route, I will give you editing access). I will of course still give you credit. See you in a couple of days, bye.

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety

      Haha, there's no need to apologise. Getting and responding to comments (especially ones like yours) is by far my favourite part of CZcams.
      I'll be super interested to see your results in these areas, and I'll look forward to hearing from you in the future if you decide to persist with these experiments.
      All the best!

  • @FlaskFlash168
    @FlaskFlash168 Před 21 hodinou

    can you use NaOH?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 17 hodinami

      If you want sodium nitrate, yes. However, the final product will be much harder to crystallise out.

  • @user-bj8th8et5x
    @user-bj8th8et5x Před rokem

    plz make ammonia by electrolysis of molten KOH with Fe3O4 and barbotation nitrogen in this hellish liquid

  • @slymythos
    @slymythos Před 2 lety +1

    This is very exciting! I would like to modify this to generate Aluminum nitrate.

  • @ab_ab_c
    @ab_ab_c Před rokem

    How much does this process cost, compared to just buying potassium nitrate?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před rokem

      That will depend on how easy it is for you to get potassium nitrate, how much the potassium nitrate costs, how much ammonia costs, and how much your electricity costs.
      Overall, this is probably going to be much more expensive than buying nitrate directly, but I'm interested in the reaction because nitrates are not an over-the-counter product where I live.

  • @christopherleubner6633

    Yup you can do this with other stuff too for example turning chloride to perchlorate. Turns amine to nitrious to nitrite to nitrate. On the other electrode you can reduce the chemicals for example turning nitromethane to methylamine 🤓

  • @WhyTheFace_NZ
    @WhyTheFace_NZ Před rokem

    Pot Ash Nitrate?

  • @shreenablamichhane
    @shreenablamichhane Před 2 lety

    Can i use sodium hydroxide?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety +2

      Yep, but then you'll end up making sodium nitrate, which is considerably more difficult to crystallise out of solution.
      Using the potassium salt is only beneficial for the crystallisation stage at the end, the rest of the process will work with sodium just fine.

    • @shreenablamichhane
      @shreenablamichhane Před 2 lety

      I have limited material so, could you help me how to get better yield through sodium hydroxide!!🤝🏻

  • @hrajabi7261
    @hrajabi7261 Před 3 lety +4

    It was a complex cell...😅 It is better if you give your own explanation for chemistry of it... To give an idea about it... Even if the knowledge is not complete... but it was an Interesting video👍... I was thinking about making nitrate from ammonia, since your "nitric acid from nitrates" video... In the video, it seemed that the nitrates turns into ammonia at cathode , I thought maybe the reverse is also possible🙌

  • @Pyrokartoffel
    @Pyrokartoffel Před 3 lety +1

    Can i use potassium Carbonate instaed of Copper Carbonate?

    • @TreHazenF
      @TreHazenF Před 3 lety +1

      I think no, sorry. You need to form the copper tetraamine complex because it acts like a catalyst in this reaction.

    • @lucas_lab
      @lucas_lab Před 3 lety

      @Heisekartoffel 07 it won't form the ammonia complex with potassium carbonate so no

    • @CatboyChemicalSociety
      @CatboyChemicalSociety Před 3 lety +2

      use copper hydroxide or oxide not copper carbonate

    • @Pyrokartoffel
      @Pyrokartoffel Před 2 lety

      Thanks, makes sense
      I will try it with oxide

  • @markshort9098
    @markshort9098 Před 3 lety +4

    Cool experiment.. i get kno3 in 25kg bags for about 40 buck from farm supplies but it might get you on a watch list, especially if you buy 3 bags like i did lol

    • @BackYardScience2000
      @BackYardScience2000 Před 3 lety

      If you buy it directly from a farm supply store then it would be up to the employees/owner to report you. So if you know them and can talk them out of doin that then you should be fine. Or, you could work there yourself and get it even cheaper! 😃

  • @myth-termoth1621
    @myth-termoth1621 Před 2 lety

    Um, do you think it is plausible that the actual reaction in the literature involves electrolytic production of ozone and the reaction of ozone with ammonia to make nitrate ? Several other CZcamsrs react ammonia with electrical discharge generated ozone to perform this synthesis.
    In Wikipedia's ozone entry it suggents ozone production is favored by low temperature, prescence of sulphuric acid and lead dioxide, and some overvoltage. If this is so it might be possible to synthesize ammonium nitrate from ammonium sulphate with a lead anode at the bottom of a tall narrow anolyte compartment ?
    Using a lead anode might be expected to be advantageous as it would oxidise to a lead dioxide anode and lead dioxide can be a catalyst for ozone production The prescence of sulphate and possible persulphate at the anode should make it unlikely that lead will disolve. I am thinking ammonium sulphate in both compartmnets. If enough nitrate and sulphate collect in the anolyte it might be possible to distill off the nitric acid and leave the sulphuric

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety

      Interesting, that's definitely a possibility.
      The only issue I can see is that by performing the electrolysis in acidic conditions, the resulting ammonium ions - as opposed to the neutral ammonia molecules for basic conditions - will be repelled by the anode. I'm not sure whether the hypothesised ozone-ammonia reaction will be hindered by this (I suppose this would only be the case if the oxidation were exclusively an electrode surface mechanism, so I imagine it wouldn't), but it might be something to keep in mind.
      While this would be a very interesting thing to try, I might have to leave the experimentation to others in this regard. Only from the reason that lead-based electrodes are required. While I've used lead electrodes in the past, I've had many issues with them and would rather not use them again for toxicity reasons alone. However, if I ever upgrade to a better lab setup, where I can more effectively deal with any lead-based mishaps, I'll definitely remember to try this!

    • @myth-termoth1621
      @myth-termoth1621 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience Yes, on deeper reflection i think there might be several ways of going about this. Either directly, with K+ irons in a basic anolyte and a copper catalyst, or by the electrolytic ozone production route reacting ammonia with ozone to form ammonium nitrate. A third set of possibilities involves setting up a fermentation of ammonia to ammonium, potassium or calcium nitrate, using either a bed of soil/compost or perhaps an aqueous fermenter using an aquarium, a pump and a trickle filter, followed by electrolytic separation of nitric acid.

  • @nattsurfaren
    @nattsurfaren Před 3 lety +2

    I hoped for a burn test.

  • @melody3741
    @melody3741 Před 2 lety

    Now this is neat, and it would definitely be a fun experiment to do on smaller scales, but is this really something that's actually necessary? You can already buy nitrates online and it's not that expensive, and so if you're not doing this to save money, then anything other than its experimental value for doing it on a small scale would literally just be because you needed large quantities of it, like what is the point? Honestly I think nitrates should stay regulated I really don't think that you guys should be attempting to make this work in gigantic volumes.

    • @f4grxsebastien483
      @f4grxsebastien483 Před rokem

      @Edward Elizabeth Hitler also rest of europe. nobody wants to end up on lists...

  • @theglorioussun9815
    @theglorioussun9815 Před 3 lety +2

    i wanna see how to make ammonia from nitrate. ammonia is not available for me

    • @philouzlouis2042
      @philouzlouis2042 Před 3 lety +3

      Pure urea from Addblue additive for Diesel cars (about 350g/L) is your saviour...
      Urea + NaOH will set free a lot of NH3 gas aswel as Na carbonate.
      Beware that NH3 is a war gas and it will be quite volatile and irritating above 12% especially with skin and wet membranes like eyes, nostrils, mouth, lungs... you may go up to 23% but keep it as cold as possible to limit volatilization... Wear closed googles/diving mask.
      You may do it from personal urine what contains on average 3% by weight urea (30g/L) and about 95% water. But you would maybe need concentration from freezing, evaporation or precipitation via unsoluble or poorly soluble salts of urea (nitrate, oxalate or cyanurate).
      I hope this helps.
      PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from Science Madness forum)

    • @SIGSEGV1337
      @SIGSEGV1337 Před 3 lety +1

      @@philouzlouis2042 NileRed extracted urea from urine, it's an expensive and arduous process don't bother. You can get urea fertilizer on Amazon.

    • @theglorioussun9815
      @theglorioussun9815 Před 3 lety +1

      @@philouzlouis2042 Thank you so much! If I make a contraption where the ammonia gas will bubble in water will I be able to capture it as NH4OH?

    • @elektronikzmbrtlar1586
      @elektronikzmbrtlar1586 Před 3 lety

      @@theglorioussun9815 yes you can

    • @philouzlouis2042
      @philouzlouis2042 Před 3 lety +3

      @@SIGSEGV1337
      Yes urea ... not ammonia... Nilered purified urea from his urine and recristallized it until colorless.
      Here we only need to concentrate it and react it with NaOH to allow gaseous NH3 to come out (only volatile compound formed) and react with cold water or an acid solution...
      I have urea fertilizer about 25kg...but it may contain biuret, triuret and cyanuric acid.
      Addblue is very pure urea saturated aqueous solution that cost about 8-9€/10L thus for 3,5kg pure urea.

  • @whyindeed9937
    @whyindeed9937 Před 2 lety

    NOX emissions are an issue for vehicle emissions. Can we just make the stuff from air with high pressure and temperature?

    • @ScrapScience
      @ScrapScience  Před 2 lety

      Yes, with high enough temperatures, NO and NO2 are generated from nothing but atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen. The temperatures required for this are extreme however, and can only generally be achieved in the plasma generated by combustion or by electrical discharge. Even then, the amounts of NOx generated are very minor, making the process extremely energy intensive.
      If you're interested in the process of converting air to NOx compounds, I'd recommend looking up something called the 'Birkeland-Eyde reactor'. This uses electrical discharge from a high voltage spark gap to generate reasonable quantities of NO2. I'll be building one myself at some point.

    • @whyindeed9937
      @whyindeed9937 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience
      That's what I've been looking at. I'm wondering if there are ways of generating greater volumes of plasma. Apart from just using higher and higher voltages.
      Could I use some sort of magnetic confinement to increase the reaction surface between the plasma and air?

    • @whyindeed9937
      @whyindeed9937 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience
      What about using an H2O Torch?
      Run a small aquarium pump into the reaction chamber, to provide the excess Nitrogen/Oxygen. The H2O products should boil off into steam. The heat from the plasma should react the excess into NOX?
      If were increasing the surface area of the plasma, are we getting an efficiency increase over the traditional Birkeland-Eyde process?

    • @whyindeed9937
      @whyindeed9937 Před 2 lety

      @@ScrapScience
      I don't suppose you have use for a 24V / 48V Power supply?
      I just rescued 100 or torroid's from the scrap yard. All 300VA 10 Amp secondary's.

    • @Preyhawk81
      @Preyhawk81 Před rokem

      @@whyindeed9937 Schönherr Stove or Schoenherr written. It was an long pipe with elektrode on bottom and one on tope and air pressed inside from the bottom. with 5,5% effezienzy.
      Haber (from Haber Bosch reaktion) Wrote that you cant get more than 10% effizienzy with elektric arc. in his lab he reached 7,2% and i think it was only so high because small arc with less watts so there wassnt so much cooling problem. He himself wrote if the pipe where out from metall or an good heatconducter the effizienc would be higher but i dont know how he wanted to prevent an short cut.

  • @ThePeterDislikeShow
    @ThePeterDislikeShow Před 3 lety +3

    Can you do a video on mixing ammonia and bleach?

  • @Jkauppa
    @Jkauppa Před rokem

    KNO3 + H2SO4 -> HNO3 + K2SO4

  • @boobdylan8904
    @boobdylan8904 Před 3 lety +4

    I think the reason you got potassium carbonate would have been because of the potassium hydroxide reacting with copper carbonate to form copper hydroxide and potassium carbonate. The copper hydroxide still stayed in solution because of its complex with ammonia.

  • @darianballard2074
    @darianballard2074 Před 2 lety +1

    You should check this out link below

  • @bearcatben4762
    @bearcatben4762 Před 3 lety +2

    come on I just got an ozone generator

  • @nicoschadjidemetriou4373
    @nicoschadjidemetriou4373 Před 2 lety +1

    Loss of time my dear .The time we lose never come back.

  • @emilmckellar4932
    @emilmckellar4932 Před rokem

    If you simply added the KNO3 to H2SO4 it should produce NO2 and easy to see and smell. But still a nice proof of concept even at a dismal yields of 20%. I still would say that producing NO3- by the oxidation of herbivore excrement the way it was done in tears yinder are more effective with less input and much better yield

  • @Taahmim
    @Taahmim Před rokem

    nitrifing bacteria will loss their job.

  • @Preyhawk81
    @Preyhawk81 Před rokem

    Interesting experiment would be elektrolysis of water with kompressed air inside. I ve read they done it with an platine anode and under 50 to 100 bar pressure it forms ammoniumnitrate. To bad that an cell with this pressure is hard to make :(

  • @jadentonkin466
    @jadentonkin466 Před rokem

    What a scam