Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Trouble Making Hydrazine Sulfate

VSEPR_VOID - 30-10-2018 at 14:04

I am making luminol from phthalic anhydride (I just finished the nitration), and have been having trouble making the hydrazine sulfate required for the next reaction.

Trial One
Nerd Rage Method

500 mL of 10% ammonia
0.2 g of gelatin
100 mL of MEK

Stir to 10 minutes well adding 186 grams of 10% bleach slowly by hand.

This produced methyl ethyl ketazine, which will take the form of fine droplets

Stir the reaction for 10 minutes

No Yield: No ME-Ketazine layer evaporates after the addition of bleach, even after several days


Trial Two
Nerd Rage Method

750 mL of 10% ammonia
0.2 g of gelatin
100 mL of MEK

Stir well adding 186 grams of 10% bleach slowly by funnel.

This produced methyl ethyl ketazine, which will take the form of fine droplets

Stir the reaction for 10 minutes

Let the layers separate, the top layer is methyl ethyl ketazine


No Yield: No ME-Ketazine layer evaporates after the addition of bleach, even after several days

In addition there was little gas produced well adding the bleach both times.Has anyone else has this problem?

UC235 - 30-10-2018 at 16:30

This is a modification of the raschig process. There should be a fair amount of gas produced, which is where much of the yield goes. Is your bleach fresh and still strongly yellow-green? Do you get cloudiness and a weird fruity smell aside from the MEK scent, or does the reaction mix stay clear?

Perhaps you have too much water in your mixture since you doubled the volume of ammonia. If you're getting cloudiness and the smell of the ketazine, maybe try saturating with NaCl to break a possible emulsion.

VSEPR_VOID - 30-10-2018 at 18:27

Quote: Originally posted by UC235  
This is a modification of the raschig process. There should be a fair amount of gas produced, which is where much of the yield goes. Is your bleach fresh and still strongly yellow-green? Do you get cloudiness and a weird fruity smell aside from the MEK scent, or does the reaction mix stay clear?

Perhaps you have too much water in your mixture since you doubled the volume of ammonia. If you're getting cloudiness and the smell of the ketazine, maybe try saturating with NaCl to break a possible emulsion.


The bleach is a few months old. It is a yellow-green.

There is no cloudiness and the reaction goes clear.

I tried adding some sulfuric acid to see what would happen and Cl2 was evolved.

Magpie - 30-10-2018 at 18:46

Try this found in Prepublication:

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...

VSEPR_VOID - 30-10-2018 at 19:09

I will buy some new bleach and start again.

UC235 - 30-10-2018 at 19:14

Chlorine production sounds like lots of breakdown to chlorate or your ammonia is a lot weaker than you think it is and there is still bleach left over.