Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Epsom Salt

Epsom Salt

The Ed - 22-6-2002 at 20:23

is there anything useful i can do with epsom salt(magnesium sulfate)? would there be any way to isolate the magnesium or even the sulfur?

btw, the E&W forum sucks major horse cock and i'm gonna hack that piece of crap if it's the last thing i do.

Polverone - 22-6-2002 at 22:12

Please refrain from slagging the E&W Forum. We have quite a bit of cross-traffic, and NBK2000's opinions are hardly shared by everyone there.

Epsom salts, what can do you with them? Well, you can dry them in the oven. They'll turn to a crumbly white powder. This is anhydrous magnesium sulfate. It's often used in the lab to dry things. You can remove traces of water from solvents with it.

Or you can make a solution of magnesium sulfate and then add potassium carbonate or sodium carbonate solution. Insoluble magnesium carbonate will precipitate, and you can filter it. The magnesium carbonate can be reacted with hydrochloric acid to produce magnesium chloride. Magnesium chloride can be electrolyzed in the molten state to yield metallic magnesium.

However, magnesium chloride melts at 714 C and magnesium melts at 649 C, so you'll A) have to work at high temperatures and B) have to contend with molten magnesium floating to the surface of your melt and catching fire.

Something I've thought of lately: magnesium melts at 649 C and calcium melts at 842 C. MgCl2 melts at 714 C and CaCl2 melts at 772 C. I'm wondering if there's a eutectic (lowest melting point) mixture of CaCl2 and MgCl2 that melts below (say) 650 C. If so, you might be able to electrolyze this salt mixture to get a solid alloy of magnesium and calcium. Of course, this alloy *also* might have a lower melting point than its constituents would suggest, in which case you still have the problem of molten metal floating and catching fire. At least I think the metals are less dense than their salts. In any case, a eutectic mixture would be nice since you wouldn't have to maintain such high heat.

Another idea is to electrolyze barium chloride, or a eutectic mixture of barium chloride and another salt. Barium is more dense than its salt, so it would fall to the bottom of the container and be protected from the air by the melt above it. Barium is also interesting because it is a much more active metal, nearly as active as potassium. Barium carbonate can be obtained from ceramics suppliers and converted to the chloride with HCl. Soluble barium salts (such as the chloride) are poisonous, so beware if you want to experiment with them.

vulture - 23-6-2002 at 23:59

Industrial preparation uses KCl or other (earth)alkali metal chlorides to lower the melting point. It still has to be done under protective atmosphere.

Maybe use your MgSO4 to concentrate your nitric acid? The HNO3 won't react with the MgSO4 because H2SO4 is a stronger acid and less volatile.

and the second half...

Beanspike - 21-4-2003 at 00:46

So we find that it is possible to obtain Mg from epsom salt.... but what about sulfur? I can find epsom salt easy enough but sulfur is not so easy. I have looked in some gardening shops and have not found any. What I usually get when I ask is wierd looks and and some kind of "what are you up to" type look.
Along those same lines I can't seem to find saltpeter......

blip - 21-4-2003 at 10:59

I read somewhere on this site on how to make sulfur from CaSO4. You should be able to do the same with MgSO4.

CaSO4 + 4C --> CaS + 4CO (heated to some temp I don't remember.)
8CaS + 8H2O2 --> 8CaO + 8H2O + S8

Likely at least some CaSO4 would be produced again in the second reaction, but there has to be some S8 produced with CaO.

Organikum - 21-4-2003 at 21:58

blip, why not:
CaS + 2HCl -> H2S + CaCl2 (H2S is deadly poison, so attention please! Use an KIPP gas generator, no other way!)
H2S + halogen (X) -> HX + S
nice, you get HI or HBr this way and sulphur also. Perhaps even HF is possible this way. For the real brave nuthingfearing experimentor? (is told to eat through flesh right to the bone.... this HF)

Haggis - 22-4-2003 at 17:01

I hear 70% HF on 2% of the body is enough to kill you. It does nasty things to your heart. Sam Barros has some new stuff up with HF eating glass. Videos too, although they arn't too impressive. I was also wondering if anhydrous magnesium sulfate would be able to suck the water molecule out of hydrazine hydrate. Any suggestions for the purification of HH without distilation with xylene? ( I didn't think this warrented a new topic, but if you think it does, feel free to change it).

Blind Angel - 22-4-2003 at 19:15

Ye Ol HF, the legend says that it's killed the last dinosaur

Anyway i don't think that any reaction that yield H2S should be done, even more if it yiel the Old Faithful HF

Marvin - 22-4-2003 at 23:34

Err, yes, its a way to get HF, if you can get F2. But if you can get F2 and have containers that will stand it and HF, there are far easier ways to get HF, like reaction with water...
With F2 youd almost certainly get no free sulphur though.

Haggis, If you are thinking it will dehydrate and then you can decant, I think it wont work. Distillation from fused sodium hydroxide is still the standard way. A sneaky method that may well work is rather badly described, but I have more than one reference for it. Its to add boric acid, forming hydrazinium borate, evaporate, heat the salt so it dehydrates, and then heating to a higher temperature is supposed to decompose it to water free hydrazine and boric oxide. I dont quite see how this works and how much hydrazine is destroyed is not mentioned either. What do you want anhydrous hydrazine for anyway? I hope you arnt one of the astrolite zombies allready.

Virtually everything useful chemically can be done with the hydrate cant it?

[Edited on 23-4-2003 by Marvin]

Haggis - 23-4-2003 at 07:53

No, I sure do not want to make any astrolite. I enjoy occasional energetic materials, but messing with anhydrous hydrazine is something too dangerous for me. I'm sure many people out there have used this reason before and here is mine: I can. I really have no use for the stuff, I simply would like to do it because I can. Once I get the HH, I would most likely just destroy it or dump it out. I just saw that anhydrous magnesium sulfate will take the water out of solvents. I figured that it might do the job without distillation under nitrogen. As long as I have the HH, I guessed that it would be a simple step to hydrazine with common materials. I was just looking for purity. I do that with many things..I synthesize them and store them till I grow tired of seeing it around or I need the container. I really never use any of the stuff I make, I just do it because I have the ability. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

[Edited on 23-4-2003 by Haggis]

TheOne - 14-4-2004 at 01:49

getting back to sulphur, is there a way to make it out of ordinary, or everyday chemicals?
i have no idea whre to get caco3 and the rest of the things you guys mentioned

TheOne - 14-4-2004 at 01:53

beanspike, i found a way to make saltpeter pretty easilly.

Materials needed:
-3.5 gallons of nitrate bearing earth or other material
-1/2 cup of wood ashes
-Bucket or other similar container about 4-5 gallons in volume
-2 pieces of finely woven cloth, each a bit bigger than the bottom of the bucket
-Shallow dish or pan at least as large in diameter as the bucket
-Shallow, heat resistant container
-2 gallons of water
-Something to punch holes in the bottom of the bucket
-1 gallon of any type of alcohol
-A heat source
-Paper & tape

Procedure:
- Punch holes on the inside bottom of the bucket, so that the metal is"puckered" outward from the bottom
- Spread cloth over the holes from the bottom
- Place wood ashes on the cloth. Spread it out so that it covers the entire cloth and has about the same thickness.
- Place 2nd cloth on top of the wood ashes
- Place the dirt or other material in the bucket
- Place the bucket over the shallow container. NOTE: It may need support on the bottom so that the holes on the bottom are not blocked.
- Boil water and pour it over the earth very slowly. Do NOT pour it all at once, as this will clog the filter on the bottom.
- Allow water to run through holes into the shallow dish on the bottom.
- Be sure that the water goes through ALL of the earth!
- Allow water in dish to cool for an hour or so
- Carefully drain the liquid in the dish away, and discard the sludge in the bottom
- Boil this liquid over a fire for at least two hours. Small grains of salt will form - scoop these out with the paper as they form
- When the liquid has boiled down to 1/2 its original volume let it sit
- After 1/2 hour, add equal volume of the alcohol; when this mixture is poured through paper, small white crystals appear. This is the posassium nitrate.

Purification:
- Redissolve crystals in small amount of boiling water
- Remove any crystals that appear
- Pour through improvised filter then heat concentrated solution to dryness.
- Spread out crystals and allow to dry

darkflame89 - 15-4-2004 at 01:39

Quote:

I read somewhere on this site on how to make sulfur from CaSO4. You should be able to do the same with MgSO4.

About this right, i believe i read somewhere that Mg and Ca compunds are to high on the list to be reduced by carbon. Dunno bout this, maybe you need verey high temp to execute this, correct me if i am wrong or what.

Marvin - 15-4-2004 at 04:28

TheOne,

Making the nitrate bearing earth is usually the hard part, unless you live neer caves with a lot of bats and the right conditions.

Darkflame,

Yes, but the reduction doesnt have anything to do with Ca or Mg specifically. You normally start by reducing the sulphate to sulphide. Its possible just burning this would get you large percentage of sulphur converted to sulphur dioxide (nasty). If that method fails, mixing the sulphide with a ferric salt should produce a ppt of ferric sulphide (not the sulphate, or you ppt calcium sulphate at the same time), which you can burn to sulphur dioxide and iron oxide. Passing in CO2 to the solution should get you hydrogen sulphide gas (rather toxic). These will react together to produce sulphur and water.

Usually people want these methods because they cant find anyone to sell them sulphur or saltpeter, and as soon as they do they wonder why they ever bothered. Youd have to be very dedicated to make useful amounts by either of these methods and someone who isnt dedicated enough to find the stuff locally isnt going to succeed.

I also find it very funny that a process producing so little salterpeter would essentially waste such a large volume of alcohol. The nitrate mound method is woth looking up, as it actually produces nitrates. Messy though.

darkflame89 - 16-4-2004 at 02:38

Oh goody, lets see the sulphur dioxide produces can be dissolved to get sulphuric acid.And at the same time i get sulphur. How much of sulphur is produced this way?? Is a high amt of heat needed??

can i do this with CuSO4??

Marvin - 16-4-2004 at 05:59

I suspect you will need a charcoal 'furnace' to get the temperature high enough to reduce, and that copper sulphate would decompose before reaching this.

Heating copper or ferrous/ferric sulphates is an option if you can collect/use the gasses at this high temp.

TheOne - 17-4-2004 at 06:47

marvin, but isnt it funner to actually produce powder, all on your own? that's the part wich makes all the fun. And besides, they don't sell the ingredients locally anymore, not after 9-11

Proteios - 17-4-2004 at 10:11

errr sulphur... can be bought over the couner... used in sulfur candles for fumigation, and in gardening i think.

Sulfur can also be precipitated from sodium thiosulphate (fixer in black and white photography)

CuSO4 decomposes at pretty high temps to give SO3 and CuO. I always melted my glassware before this happened though. Silica would do it. As for reduction with C... thats always a pain due to the solid nature of both reagents. H2 is a good and simple substitution, made by conc NaOH and Al foil. A very potent generator, takes a while to get going, but will freqently boil the water due to the ferocity of the reaction).

Marvin - 17-4-2004 at 11:10

TheOne,

It depends what you actually want to spend your time doing. Would you enjoy more spending weeks making small amounts of sulphur, and months making larger amounts of nitre or simply buying these and making fireworks?

Most people I know are interested in nitre, sulphur, sulphuric acid etc not because they want to be making them, but because of what they want to make from them.

darkflame89 - 18-4-2004 at 00:19

Jus asking, what will H2 gas do to the CuSO4? Cos i am interested in such a generator..

JSchroe - 8-5-2004 at 21:47

so save your self the time, you can buy 95% sulfur at any garden shop. I bought 350g of 95% Sulfur for around 8 dollars Canadian. Just go to the Garden part of Walmart and look for fungicides for roses. I think the Brand is Laters and its in a yellow and red container. I hope this helps you all!

Geomancer - 9-5-2004 at 09:40

Certain biological processes can reduce sulphate to sulfur. I don't have any details available, and I think that reducing to sulphide is more common.

Regarding the garden sulfur, I have a bag of this stuff, and it is completely ruined (for my purposes) by whatever evil chemicals make up the other 5%. I posted more details a while ago in one of the other threads.

TheOne - 14-5-2004 at 11:40

much use it will do now, huh?
I tried to go to many places in search, but with no luck. I heard of some process that they extract the sulfur from the earth by making hot water go underground, and pressurizing out the sulfur. Does anyone know about this?

Geomancer - 15-5-2004 at 10:53

It's called the Frasch process. Obviously, you need an underground sulfur deposit and big expensive equipment to be able to use it.

Norm Alara - 17-5-2004 at 11:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Beanspike
So we find that it is possible to obtain Mg from epsom salt.... but what about sulfur? I can find epsom salt easy enough but sulfur is not so easy. I have looked in some gardening shops and have not found any. What I usually get when I ask is wierd looks and and some kind of "what are you up to" type look.
Along those same lines I can't seem to find saltpeter......

Saltpeter = "Grant's stump remover"
=2mm KNO3 prills. At Home Depot.

TheOne - 20-5-2004 at 07:54

yes, but how do people know where there are underground deposits?