Sciencemadness Discussion Board - ammonia solution without suds

ammonia solution without suds

conducter - 31-8-2007 at 19:02

i was told that i could get ammonia otc sold as clear ammonia, but if you shake it its not suppose to bubble at top because of the soap.

Anyways i went to a few places and every grocery store seems to have clear ammonia that has soap in it because after shaking, it bubbles alot at the top.

I was told that they sell janitorial strength ammonia at Ace hardware but if anyone can help that owuld be great

Sauron - 31-8-2007 at 20:33

Gee, that doesn't happen with my 4 liter jugs of ACS grade concentrated ammonium hydroxide.

Why not try using chemicals rather than window cleaners?

guy - 31-8-2007 at 21:15

Go to Ace Hardware...they sell 10% Janitor grade pure ammonia solution.

woelen - 1-9-2007 at 10:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Sauron
Gee, that doesn't happen with my 4 liter jugs of ACS grade concentrated ammonium hydroxide.

Why not try using chemicals rather than window cleaners?

Apparently you can buy any chemical at any quantity you want, but this is not the case for most other members from this forum. Here in NL, we can buy 5% pure ammonia in every shop, and in Belgium I can buy 12% pure ammonia, but there are many places in the world, where it is not available easily as a pure chemical, and getting a gallon of 25+ % ACS grade ammonia is something where most people (including me) can only dream of.

conducter - 1-9-2007 at 18:07

its not that hard, but with hazmat fees i would much rather pick it up locally

Sauron - 1-9-2007 at 18:49

No, I can't buy any chemical I want, but I can buy most of them.

For the others various official barriers exist.

For some, the Ministry of Defense, office of the Permanent Secretary needs to issue an import license.

For others the Ministry of Industry needs to approve, and usually only do so if you have a factory license.

For some the Office of Narcotics Control Board has an interest (e.g., acetic anhydride.)

For some the Food & Drug Administration gets involoved if they decide you must be making items under thgeir jurisdiction (I had this happen about a shipment of herbs.)

I am given to understand that businesses that import chemicals must have a specific license for every chemical they import, issued by the Police Department. This effectively means that in some cases only one company can import a particular chemical here, as no other importer has that license. Often this is a chicken and egg sort of thing, which comes first? The license or the demand? And in some cases no one has such an import license and for a small sale they are hard to motivate to go apply for it.

So, this Kingdom is not without obstacles. HOWEVER, so far I have had fewer real problems than I might have elsewhere. I hope this trend continues.

@woelen, can you not incorporate and thus get out from under restrictions placed on individual purchasers? I buy through my corporation.

If conducter is in USA then he could buy his ACS ammonia, he said so, and I know that companies l;ike VWR will sell to individuals. He says he is just trying to avoid hazmat fees tacked onto shipping charges. In short for him this is a rice-bowl issue, a matter of cost and not a question of having no choice.

When I am faced with a problem of an unimportable chemical I have three choices:

1. Find another, importable, compound to do same job

2. Cancel project and find something else to entertain myself.

3. Make the stuff myself. As a chemist, the third option is my favorite.

Recent example. I wanted some chloroacetyl chloride to condense with ethanedithiol to make starting material for an organic superconducter.

Chloroacetyl chloride is hard to ship because it requires refrigerated container. And cannot come by air.

Only one importer has a license and they didn't want to bother (Merck).

So I bought chloroacetic acid and will convert it to the acyl chloride myself. Maybe with TCT, maybe with benzoyl chloride, maybe with phthaloyl chloride, I have not yet decided. Several Kg of chloroacetic acid are sitting under this very desk still sealed. I can't proceed till hood is operational, chloroacetyl chloride being rather nasty smelly corrosive stuff.

But the problem is tractible. Most such problems are. It is a function of how much time and effort you are willing to invest. In my case, I am generally as happy making one thing as making another, so I don't mind.

As to ammonium hydroxide, @woelen, you can always generate the gas and dissolve it in water, the affinioty of NH3 for H2O is notorious, and you will soon have the 27% azeotrope regardlesss of silly-ass EU regulations. Even Rhodium had a procedure for making ammonia - was it from NH4Cl?

I realize it is not as convenient as buying the reagent but it is perhaps superior to 5% solution (though you could start with that and add more gas).

pantone159 - 2-9-2007 at 08:14

I will second Ace brand "Janitorial Strength Formula, 10% NH4OH" ammonia solution, which I can find at a local hardware store (which isn't named 'Ace' but I think it is related to them.)

It seems to be ok, I just gave it the shake test, and it seems to work fine.

woelen - 2-9-2007 at 11:47

Quote:

As to ammonium hydroxide, @woelen, you can always generate the gas and dissolve it in water, the affinioty of NH3 for H2O is notorious, and you will soon have the 27% azeotrope regardlesss of silly-ass EU regulations. Even Rhodium had a procedure for making ammonia - was it from NH4Cl?

Of course, and actually, I did, starting with 12% ammonia from Belgium, using an inverted funnel just touching the surface of the liquid which absorbs gaseous ammonia from humid NaOH+NH4Cl (thanks to a great idea of YT2095

). I think that the stuff I made must be 20% or so, maybe a little more.

I agree with you that sometimes your third option must be taken. In this way, I made quite a few rather interesting chemicals, which I otherwise could not obtain (e.g. K3CrO8, Ni(NH3)6Br2). But making such chemicals already is fun on its own.

len1 - 2-9-2007 at 19:57

I needed to make some NH3 solution for the ammonium sulphate purification I described elsewhere, so I thought the fastest way would be to distil 5% cloudy ammonia, the soap will stay in the vessel, while a higher conc. soln. will form in the condenser. To my great surprise I could not stop soap from coming over completely even when evaporating through glass wool with a splash head - the condensed solution would not be completely frothless when shaken. I presume its thermodynmically advantageous for evaporating droplets to gather some surfactant with them, even though the bp of the surfactant is much higher.

Adun-Swim - 24-9-2007 at 15:57

Hell, even making anhydrous ammonia is not difficult, although storage can be a bitch. Just take ammonia based fertilizer, add a strong base, run the gas through a condenser... boom, ammonia, which you can dilute to any concentration. Hell, improve the procedure and use ammonium chloride even. Strong base displaces ammonia, which = gas with cooling = liquid ammonia, anhydrous.
EDIT: Don't try that unless you can cool below -33 C
My siggy is actually from a post on that, from Rhodium. That's where I got the idea and found how easy it is to get ammonia.

[Edited on 24-9-2007 by Adun-Swim]

Ammonium bicarbonate

chloric1 - 25-9-2007 at 14:45

I have Hy-Yeild Ammonium sulfate and I was wanting to try heating this with the stoichiometric amount of baking soda. I had reasonable success subliming ammonium carbonate from the more alkaline potassium carbonate and ammnonium sulfate. In fact an ammoniacle odor was obvious at room temperature upon mixture of reactants. The reason for the solid bicarbonate is a Solvay type process. Very soluble sodium salts react with said bicarbonate to precipitate sodium bicarbonate and leave ammonium salt in solution. I wish to try this with my sodium chlorate I just made.

Jor - 16-2-2008 at 06:54

Im sorry for the bump, but I thought I should at least post another synthesis for ammonia gas, wich I have not seen anywhere else. It seems to be quite cheap method, although not as cheap as ammonium sulphate method or ammonioumchloride/nitrate + hydroxide method..

3 NO3- +8 Al + 5 OH- + 2H2O >>> 8 AlO2 - + 3 NH3 (Vogel)
Aluminium (foil) can be replaced by zinc.
This is for the people who have very cheap sodium/potassium nitrate, but no ammonium nitrate OTC.

microcosmicus - 16-2-2008 at 07:29

If the stuff which makes your ammonia cleaner sudsy happens to be good old soap (fatty acid salt)
as opposed to some other surfactant, you should be able to fix the problem by adding some metal
ions to precipitate it out. For instance, add Ca(OH)2 to turn the soap into insoluble scum.
That should fix the problem of foam and soap coming over when heating the stuff to liberate
the NH3 gas.