John paul III
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nitrate from cyanide?
Is there a way to oxidize cyanide to nitrate? Im toying with that idea of making gunpowder from omnipresent natural resources the doesnt involve
pissing into a compost pile for a year. Potassium cyanide can be made by reacting potash and charcoal in presence of combustion gases in a 1200°C
furnace such as the one built by primitive technology. Cyanide can be transformed into ammonia by dissolving it in hot water, but the consensus seems
to be that oxidation of ammonia is too difficult for an amateur, much less in a low tech setting
[Edited on 28-3-2020 by John paul III]
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clearly_not_atara
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Oxidation of urine has been practiced for centuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate#LeConte
[Edited on 04-20-1969 by clearly_not_atara]
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WGTR
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Here is a thread for your viewing pleasure:
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=71...
That's the electrochemical conversion of ammonia and potassium hydroxide to potassium nitrate. It's a fairly simple and room temperature process.
One member (who is no longer here) sent me a PM detailing how he copied the original reaction described in the reference (in the thread):
"I repeated the experiment by Traube and followed their instructions word by word. I was able to get 21g of Sodium Nitrate from the first run. I did
experiment number 2 from their original article. "
The potassium hydroxide that I used could conceivably be made from potassium ash and quicklime.
The Ostwald Process has some undeserved reputation for being difficult, in my opinion. There are other threads here (including a stickied one) on
different versions of it, but mainly Heptylene and myself contributed to this one:
https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=84...
I think that between the two of us, there is enough information posted in that thread for anyone to duplicate this process. The overall idea is:
bubble air through ammonia solution of specific concentration, heat over a catalyst in a short quartz tube, pass process gasses through a short coiled
tube that is submerged in an ice bath (captures excess ammonia and water moisture), oxidize NO to NO2 in a chamber, and then...collect N2O2 as a
refrigerated liquid, or bubble it through a tower to create nitric acid.
I put some time/effort/money into that project with the hopes that other people could simply duplicate my setup without having to spend their own
time, effort, and money.
If you want to synthesize the ammonia as well, I suspect that there are ways that the Haber Process can work close to atmospheric pressure. The
equilibrium towards ammonia at reaction temperatures is not favorable at atmospheric pressure, but that doesn't mean that the reaction can't be pushed
in the desired direction using other means. It would be more energy intensive to do this at low pressure though, hence it would not be useful for
industry.
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tahallium
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Afaik cyanates can be hydrolyzed to ammonia
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draculic acid69
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Why would you want to start with cyanide to make nitrate.im assuming there's a few easier ways to get there that aren't so dangerous.what about
extracting it from soils?
Oxidizing nitrites with h2o2? Jacobs ladder and bubbling fumes thru water.cyanide sounds like a really shitty starting point.
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SWIM
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How about photocatalytic oxidation of the cyanide induced with UV radiation in contact with titanium dioxide powder?
There's some stuff on sciencedirect about it. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/101060...
I'd still look really hard at alternative routes before I started making lots of cyanide just to make nitrate.
Not just the danger, which can be managed, but consider how hard it'd be to convince somebody who found out you're making lots of cyanide that you're
just using it to make nitrates.
I know if they caught somebody making cyanide here in the USA without a better explanation than that that he might have to deal with an awful lot of
questions and maybe even some guy from the EPA showing up to test your soil and still charge you for it even if the test is clean.
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AJKOER
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Yes, nitrate from CN-, see "Elimination Cyanide with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) and Calcium Hypochlorite (Ca(OCl)2) on Gold Mine Waste from North Luwu,
South Sulawesi " which is available as a PDF (search google).
Per Reactions (1) to (3):
CN- + H2O2 -> OCN- + H2O (1)
OCN- + 3 H2O -> NO2- + CO3(2-) +2 H2O + 2 H+ (2)
NO2- + H2O2 -> NO3- + H2O (3)
Reaction details (like pH, contact time,...) are provided.
It seems like a possible problematic path from HCN to HNO3, but safer from NaCN to a NaNO3.
Note: One may be able, in Reaction (3), to replace H2O2 with HOCl, but apparently NOT advised in (1), as per (7):
CN- + HOCl → CNCl + OH- (7)
and one may wish to avoid CNCl.
[Edited on 1-4-2020 by AJKOER]
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