Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Early chemists obtaining their reagents from nature.

DDbiology2010 - 18-3-2010 at 11:07

Does anyone know of some books or resources that show you how to obtain reagents from nature. For instance, how did early chemists obtain their chemicals for their chemical reactions. Today, people just buy the chemicals from others. How do you start from scratch. Also, a book on how to build chemical glassware from scratch would be awesome too. Thanks.

bbartlog - 18-3-2010 at 11:30

<i>books or resources that show you how to obtain reagents from nature. For instance, how did early chemists obtain their chemicals for their chemical reactions</i>

While at first blush it might seem that your best approach to obtaining reagents from nature is to imitate the alchemists or perhaps the 18th and 19th century industrial chemists that came after them, this is almost always impractical. First of all, their approaches were often risky by modern standards (look at the historical record of death and illness in the production of mercury and phosphorus, for example). Second, while their facilities may have been techonologically primitive, it doesn't follow that they are easy to reproduce as some sort of backyard project. Third, the extant descriptions often omit enough details that you would end up needing to do extensive experimentation and tinkering.
In short you are asking two different questions here even though you make it sound like one. If you want to obtain reagents from nature yourself for some reason, then you will probably want to use some modern method. If you want to replicate the work of the early chemists, you can, but don't think that this is a practical method for reagent acquisition.
As for the glassware, also possible... but how about one thing at a time? If there is some particular compound you want to obtain 'from nature' maybe you could focus on that. The feasibility seems like very much a case by case thing.

DDbiology2010 - 18-3-2010 at 12:07

I would love to use modern methods in creating reagents for reactions. However, I don't want to have to buy my chemicals from a supply company. For example, a reaction to make HCl acid requires sulfuric acid and salt. Well, I know I can obtain salt in a natural form, but how do I obtain sulfuric acid from nature. I'm sure there is a reaction from naturally occurring reagents to make sulfuric acid, because companies make sulfuric acid all the time. Basically, I want to know how to obtain reagents starting from reactions that use naturally occurring substances, and of course I want to use modern methods. It's a whole lot safer :)

Picric-A - 18-3-2010 at 12:19

Companies make H2SO4 from naturally occuring materials indeed, specifically water, air and sulphur.
HOWEVER they use billion pound factories, expencive catalysts and harsh conditions, hard to reach in a lab (let alone a backyard!!)
Get sulphuric acid from batteries if all else fails, or order it as a drain unblocker. you dont have to order from chemical supply companies, you just gotta know were to look!

Magpie - 18-3-2010 at 12:34

Quote: Originally posted by Picric-A  

you dont have to order from chemical supply companies, you just gotta know were to look!


One of the best places to look is this forum:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4800&a...

Also see the Readily Available Chemicals thread by I am a Fish.

And don't forget the search engine.

1281371269 - 18-3-2010 at 13:06

Making glassware isn't really worth the effort IMO. The equipment, safety equipment, and raw materials are all expensive. It would take years of practice to be able to make something capable of carrying out any serious chemical processes.

What country are you in? There are lots of people who will be able to give recommendations regarding cheap companies to use, and you might be able to buy some reagents off of people on the forum (that's how I have obtained anything otherwise hard to get hold of).

There are certain things that are very easy to get from nature, e.g. Urea, Ethanol, NaCl, etc

DDbiology2010 - 19-3-2010 at 07:08

Well, I'm from the United States. I'm just really trying to be totally independent from society, cause it makes me feel free, and I feel knowing the knowledge of being independent is extremely important. For instance, I'm growing my own food, obtaining my own electricity, and built my own house. Now, I want to manufacture chemicals on my own, but I need the knowledge of creating pure reagents from minerals and elements just lying around outside somewhere. The glassware does take time to master, but you can become average in anything in a very short time period if you put your mind to it, and in my experience, average is usually sufficient enough to get the job done. Anyway, It looks like there needs to be some books on "starting from nothing" for a lot of subjects, cause people are way to dependent on others, which is okay. I've found books on starting a lab, but the books always start out by telling you to purchase this and that. The knowledge of going out and finding the material from primordial Earth and making this or that is what I want.

[Edited on 19-3-2010 by DDbiology2010]

[Edited on 19-3-2010 by DDbiology2010]

hissingnoise - 19-3-2010 at 07:22

Quote:
For instance, I'm growing my own food, obtaining my own electricity, and built my own house. Now, I want to manufacture chemicals on my own, but I need the knowledge of creating pure reagents from minerals and elements just lying around outside somewhere.

I was wondering what an else was - but how you'll find the time to extract reagents from the environment given your current commitments is quite beyond me.
It's a commendable attitude, but working 24/7 will hardly be enough. . .


DDbiology2010 - 19-3-2010 at 07:49


Your right. The time required to do anything worth something is usually more than a lot. I'm thinking maybe I could figure out the reactions from reagents obtained naturally to products of pure elements. Then pure elements as reagents are pretty easy to use at figuring out other reactions. What do you think?

ninefingers - 19-3-2010 at 07:56

Jules Verne describes his castaways in The Mysterious Island cooking pyrite (Iron Sulfate) ,water, and copper sulfate that they dug out of the soil. These distilled into S03 and H20; forming H2SO4. Then they cooked manatee fat into soap with wood ashes; leaving glycerin in the bottom of the pot. The Sulfuric acid and saltpeter from seagull dung made, of course, nitric acid for their nitroglycerin.

Also, burning sulfur with saltpeter produces sulfuric acid.

I dig old synths, too. :) I have a lot of bone meal (Calcium Phosphate et al) that I am going to calcine in a crucible to get Phosphorus, I hope.:(

[Edited on 3-20--10 by ninefingers]

hissingnoise - 19-3-2010 at 08:18

It should be remembered that the early chemists were men of considerable means; they were able to devote practically all of their time to their science interests without distraction.


bbartlog - 19-3-2010 at 08:21

Fundamentally, the kind of autarky you are describing is enormously labor-intensive, even if you are a highly skilled jack of all trades and polymath. And on top of that many compounds of interest are simply not going to exist in your backyard, e.g. if you are interested in bromine and bromides, you will probably find that even if you have the skill, time, and resources to do the extraction from kelp or other marine sources, you have no way of obtaining the raw material in quantity. Much as I sympathize with your goals I think you have to understand that even the alchemists had to rely on sponsors and medieval trade to obtain their feedstocks. Hennig Brandt had to get 6600 liters of urine and some sort of massy iron retort to make phosphorus, and you can bet he didn't refine the iron himself, nor likely make the vessel.
Nonetheless, if doing stuff yourself is more important than achieving a wide range, I would suggest some of the following:
- ethanol (fermentation and distillation)
- acetic acid (same... only different :P )
- soap
- nitrates via a medieval-style niter bed (maybe followed by black powder manufacture, if you can get sulfur...)
- citric acid via aspergillus niger culture
- various essential oil extractions, e.g. steam distillation of limonene, eugenol or what have you
Quote:
I'm thinking maybe I could figure out the reactions from reagents obtained naturally to products of pure elements. Then pure elements as reagents are pretty easy to use at figuring out other reactions


The analytical chemists of old spent a lot of effort isolating pure elements, but no, I don't think the approach you describe is generally applicable to making useful compounds. To begin with, a huge chunk of the elements are reactive enough that they are hard to isolate and store. All the halides and all the alkali metals fall into this category. Thus, supposing you have limestone, it is both very difficult to get elemental calcium from it, and it is also often unnecessary to do so if your goal is some calcium compound.
Second, in the case of organic compounds it makes more sense to try to have a supply of various small building blocks than it does to isolate elements. Having carbon, hydrogen and oxygen on hand gets you approximately nowhere in terms of organic synthesis. On the other hand, ethanol, methanol, acetic acid and acetone are all small molecules that are useful in organic chemistry and at least in principle capable of being manufactured at home.

watson.fawkes - 19-3-2010 at 08:47

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
Fundamentally, the kind of autarky you are describing is enormously labor-intensive, even if you are a highly skilled jack of all trades and polymath. [...] Much as I sympathize with your goals I think you have to understand that even the alchemists had to rely on sponsors and medieval trade to obtain their feedstocks.
I think working through any kind of chemical infrastructure is an excellent exercise in learning just how interdependent people are with each other in creating something of this complexity.

As for the original poster, to get old-school in a serious way, you will need (1) a mine, (2) a forest, and (3) slave labor. That will get you 80-90% of the known chemistry up to about Paracelsus.

quicksilver - 19-3-2010 at 08:50

If you live in an area wherein there are "Rocks & Minerals" shops you can get some pretty unique things. I live not far from a copper mine (several) and I have a few of these shops not far from me. I have found a very fine example or arsenic (display - type) and quite a bit of arsenic in usable form. I found many other things but where there is silver (Nevada) there is a great deal of silver oxide available. To purchase this is actually several hundred dollars per pound (technical grade) Cinnabar when "roasted" yields mercury (I have NOT tried this) but did get some samples. Volcanic conditions yield a great deal of sulfur in wonderful forms.
The "black crud" in much H2SO4 is from the anodizing industry & can be removed very easily. If you DO happen to live in an area where there is a great deal of mining acids are almost free. Same goes for plating companies that are small & struggling. They will sell off their HNO3 at their price (if they are not using it immediately) as they often have to order too much. They get this in a stainless steel drum that they must return at a date and NEED to get 2-4 gals of acid off their hands (no pun intended). This generally is $30 a gal for 70%.
You are actually doing them a favor. Make friends with them and you'll have a supply for years. FIND a stainless steel drum (they are 30 gal and look very nice) in a closed down plating company and they will buy it from you for $100 faster than you can lug it off your truck.
Before Gold went through the roof it sold for market value in raw form (for display) or in very rough ingots that could have been someone's jewelry (which is very sad indeed). Silver is available at market prices unless it is in drawn wire form; which is generally 10% more. Fine pure silver wire when cut to small sections will react very quickly to 70% HNO3 to yield silver nitrate. A 500 gram jar of silver nitrate (or oxide) when bought through Alpha Asear or Spectrum will often cost more than $400.

Most people have good reason for not wanting to go into small mines but I have peeked in and seen excellent examples of nitrates growing on rocks where there is organic material & moisture built up for a LONG time. You can find fantastic things in or near mines albeit there are serious dangers involved. The sample ore is often incredible. Gold is occasionally found in white hard quartz, examine anything that catches the eye in a color scheme (green, red, yellow, blue). Mines frequently (in areas where gold is hunted for) will have a substantial amount of lead in various oxide forms.

Copper mines frequently have a red surrounding soil & often have a great deal of Malachite scattered in the soil. IF you go where "wildcat mining is a practice; LOOK at the floor!!!! Too often the mine is a shaft going straight down! If you ever enter a mine; NEVER go alone! Mines in summer have snakes like spaghetti & surprise shafts going (again) straight DOWN. IF you do want to explore, tie a rope on your waist and to a partner, tell someone where you're going & when you expect to get back, take a vehicle that is reliable to a fault! And bring tools such as a large & small shovel, breaker bar, sharpened hammer, extended sledge hammer (a sledge hammer with a welded steel bar that's 5 ft long to bust big rocks) and enormous amounts of water, serious 1st aid stuff, & a Sat phone, if you can get one. - It's fun, so long as you don't think you're invincible.



[Edited on 19-3-2010 by quicksilver]

DDbiology2010 - 19-3-2010 at 09:18

I have a bunch of silver mines where I live. I think I'll start with making silver nitrate, and hey I could make some money to fund my activities by selling the silver nitrate crystals, and maybe make a mirror! Good idea, I looked on ebay and silver nitrate is selling for a lot a money!

Ya, I love those old recipes too.

IrC - 19-3-2010 at 12:24

One of the best books is Henley's twentieth century forrmulas, recipes and processes. A free PDF of about 111 MB available below.

http://www.archive.org/details/henleystwentieth00hiscrich

There was a site with several dozen of these old books for free (all about making things you need in say 1890 or thereabouts). I have not been there for years and after 3 hours today I still am beyond hope of remembering who the hell they were, or where they are (what URL), or if they even exist still.

However if I wake up at 3 AM I will post it, I expect you to be up patiently waiting ....

Forgot to add the DjVu is only 38 MB if you are into that, I have both but for some reason I usually only look at it in PDF format. You can also browse it online in HTML.


[Edited on 3-19-2010 by IrC]

JohnWW - 19-3-2010 at 16:16

To download the DJVU version you have to use this URL, which is not linked from the web-page (which only allows it to be viewed online) given by IrC above:

http://ia331402.us.archive.org/1/items/henleystwentieth00his... 38.5 Mb

The PDF version can be downloaded directly from the link provided on that web-page, however:

http://www.archive.org/download/henleystwentieth00hiscrich/h... 111.0 Mb

The title is Henley's Twentieth Century Book Of Formulas, Recipes & Processes (1914).

[Edited on 20-3-10 by JohnWW]

agorot - 19-3-2010 at 17:10

Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
The glassware does take time to master, but you can become average in anything in a very short time period if you put your mind to it, and in my experience, average is usually sufficient enough to get the job done.


I don't want to crush your spirits; in fact, I know exactly how you feel.

However, you could not pay me enough to use an "average" piece of glassware to make something like sulfuric acid as you mentioned previously.

I personally would love to help you with whatever I can, and I know may others on this forum would like to do the same, but honestly, until you have gotten some real lab expierience with high quality borosilicate glassware, it's just not worth it to try to use hommade glassware for most production experiments.

Sure, you could use a little glass bottle to act as a beaker, but don't heat that or it will shatter. Don't try to store something volatile in it with some plastic wrap on top because you will not hold that substance. Don't use the metal lid to store something corrosive. Don't store chemicals in the same building that you sleep in unless they are in bottles up to the task in chemical containment. Really, you can practice making borosilicate glass on the side, but don't use it. Buy it.

ninefingers - 19-3-2010 at 18:09

Quote:
Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
Well, I'm from the United States. I'm just really trying to be totally independent from society, cause it makes me feel free, and I feel knowing the knowledge of being independent is extremely important. For instance, I'm growing my own food, obtaining my own electricity, and built my own house. Now, I want to manufacture chemicals on my own, but I need the knowledge of creating pure reagents from minerals and elements just lying around outside somewhere. The knowledge of going out and finding the material from primordial Earth and making this or that is what I want.


Cool!:)

I thought of this a few times. Splittin' to Montana or somewheres; not needing money except for a haircut now and then. I'd still need my lab and Ham radio; that would take a little juice but not much. A washing machine, too.

Please U2U me and tell me how You did it/how it goes?:)

IrC - 19-3-2010 at 20:44

Quote: Originally posted by agorot  
Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
The glassware does take time to master, but you can become average in anything in a very short time period if you put your mind to it, and in my experience, average is usually sufficient enough to get the job done.


I don't want to crush your spirits; in fact, I know exactly how you feel.

However, you could not pay me enough to use an "average" piece of glassware to make something like sulfuric acid as you mentioned previously.

I personally would love to help you with whatever I can, and I know may others on this forum would like to do the same, but honestly, until you have gotten some real lab expierience with high quality borosilicate glassware, it's just not worth it to try to use hommade glassware for most production experiments.

Sure, you could use a little glass bottle to act as a beaker, but don't heat that or it will shatter. Don't try to store something volatile in it with some plastic wrap on top because you will not hold that substance. Don't use the metal lid to store something corrosive. Don't store chemicals in the same building that you sleep in unless they are in bottles up to the task in chemical containment. Really, you can practice making borosilicate glass on the side, but don't use it. Buy it.


Don't take this the wrong way but it sounds like you think the guy is a complete idiot. Either that or you are way too fearful in chemistry. Or something. I am all for him, it is not that hard to make safe, decent glassware if you have somewhat of a gift in making things. Does the guy sound like he needs the metal lid/corrosive advice? I doubt it. I am sure he is capable of doing his acid production with hand crafted wares by simply building an enclosure with say decently thick plexiglass or Lexan for a door/window to completely contain any flying acid. At least this is how I would do it. Not getting on your case here but be real, the site is supposed to be about mad science performed by even madder people and baking soda volcanoes are not the rule here. I think you should tone down the paranoia a little. Hell I sleep in the same room with U238 and other than the extra arm with glowing eyes on the fingertips I have not noticed anything out of the ordinary in say the last decade or so.

Side note here but thanks John. I had the DjVu for years and could not find the CD I stored it on so today I fought that streaming crap for an hour finally giving up. Sometimes it is easier (at least quicker) for me to D/L a thing again. Just for the sake of future finding things how did you arrive at the link meaning if I wanted something else how would I find the direct D/L link like the one you posted?

ninefingers - 20-3-2010 at 06:30

Get the Improvised Munitions Handbook. It describes heating a bottle in sand in a tin can over a fire, and taped to another bottle to distill HNO3; and other ways of making things with little/no professional glassware. The distilling is done outside, so if something breaks you can just Run.

not_important - 20-3-2010 at 07:40

Quote:
simply building an enclosure with say decently thick plexiglass or Lexan

Obtained from a handy Lexan outcropping or mine, I assume.

Until a bit into the 19th century much chemistry was done in the same sort of vessels as used in the kitchen, and for awhile later with chemical glassware of ordinary or hard glass that suffered the same thermal expansion and shock problems. Old books not infrequently mention slow careful heating, or the frustration of breakage of flasks and beakers. Using such glassware does mean taking more care, but sustained research in chemistry and physics until the end of the 19th century.

So it is quite possible to make your own glassware, but getting the uniformity of the glass and defect-free objects from it is not easy, there a good deal of skill to it. I will also note that glassblowers often suffered from diseases of the respiratory system brought on by their occupation, something else that is a part of using the old ways.
Quote:
I'm just really trying to be totally independent from society, cause it makes me feel free, and I feel knowing the knowledge of being independent is extremely important. For instance, I'm growing my own food, obtaining my own electricity, and built my own house.


So you made your own generator by mining and smelting copper and iron, drawing wire, making insulation from plant fibers and resins? Made your own woodworking tools from the same iron ore, I assume. Else you're hardly totally independent from society because you're using products of a enormous and complexly intertwined global social-industrial structure, one that you must deal with should you every need to replace some product derived from it (your computer, say). Thomas Jefferson ran into this problem, his life as a independent yeoman farmer required frequent infusion of products of urban industry and not uncommonly of evil European manufacture.


IrC - 20-3-2010 at 08:56

"Obtained from a handy Lexan outcropping or mine, I assume."

Ok not_important I see your point and that was funny but I see no reason to take everything as oscillations between extremes here. The guy did not say he was on Gilligan's Island so be reasonable. I am quite sure he is not talking to us on his coconut magnaphone, or is he I wonder? I assumed he meant he wanted to make everything possible the old way meaning using coconuts but finding wire from the radios of old washed up ship wrecks. I will take your challenge however. He found an outcrop of mica, and after making a thin blade from his dead mastadon tooth he spent years carefully peeling off a really nice big window of pure mica to replace the lexan mine he looked for but failed to locate.

Or something like that.

However now I'm pissed. I cannot get that stupid song out of my head. A three hour tour? If not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost....

I'll have you know Ginger might have been somewhat OK but I was always in love with Mary Ann.

agorot - 20-3-2010 at 09:02

Quote: Originally posted by IrC  
Quote: Originally posted by agorot  
Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
The glassware does take time to master, but you can become average in anything in a very short time period if you put your mind to it, and in my experience, average is usually sufficient enough to get the job done.


I don't want to crush your spirits; in fact, I know exactly how you feel.

However, you could not pay me enough to use an "average" piece of glassware to make something like sulfuric acid as you mentioned previously.

I personally would love to help you with whatever I can, and I know may others on this forum would like to do the same, but honestly, until you have gotten some real lab expierience with high quality borosilicate glassware, it's just not worth it to try to use hommade glassware for most production experiments.

Sure, you could use a little glass bottle to act as a beaker, but don't heat that or it will shatter. Don't try to store something volatile in it with some plastic wrap on top because you will not hold that substance. Don't use the metal lid to store something corrosive. Don't store chemicals in the same building that you sleep in unless they are in bottles up to the task in chemical containment. Really, you can practice making borosilicate glass on the side, but don't use it. Buy it.


Don't take this the wrong way but it sounds like you think the guy is a complete idiot. Either that or you are way too fearful in chemistry. Or something. I am all for him, it is not that hard to make safe, decent glassware if you have somewhat of a gift in making things. Does the guy sound like he needs the metal lid/corrosive advice? I doubt it. I am sure he is capable of doing his acid production with hand crafted wares by simply building an enclosure with say decently thick plexiglass or Lexan for a door/window to completely contain any flying acid. At least this is how I would do it. Not getting on your case here but be real, the site is supposed to be about mad science performed by even madder people and baking soda volcanoes are not the rule here. I think you should tone down the paranoia a little. Hell I sleep in the same room with U238 and other than the extra arm with glowing eyes on the fingertips I have not noticed anything out of the ordinary in say the last decade or so.


Sorry, you're right that I did seem a little condescending.

I just remember back about a year and a half ago when I was trying to make sulfuric acid myself. Bad things happened. Basically I tried to cool a bottle too quickly and it exploded, sending hot conc. acid all over me. Luckily I was wearing goggles, an apron, a long sleeved shirt, sweatpants, and gloves so I didn't actually get any of the acid on me! It was a miracle.

The reason I was such a fearmonger was because of that incident. I was traumatized.

Like I said above, and this still stands, I'm happy to help with whatever I can. I think we are all learners here to some degree or another, and I didn't mean to sound snotty.

[Edited on 20-3-2010 by agorot]

IrC - 20-3-2010 at 10:50

I was not really jumping on you it is the way I talk all the time so do not be worried. If I had a reason to be angry it would be at not_important for making that stupid Gilligan's Island song to still be stuck in my brain.

not_important - 20-3-2010 at 21:38

{insert evil laughter here}

My point is that if someone says something like I'm just really trying to be totally independent from society and then people suggest hi-tech approaches, there's a bit of cognitive dissonance going on. If you're talking about making your own glassware, resorting to Lexan shields seems to be going the other way.

It's really difficult to "be totally independent", unless you're willing to step back several centuries, or expend a very large amount of effort. If you really want to be independent, you make your own glass and use that to make glassware. You have to hold the glass hot enough to be rather fluid for several hours, allowing bubbles to escape and some impurities to form a scum. The you lower the temperature a few hunderd C to blowing temperatures. Old school blowers used clay blowpipes, good for a half dozen pieces or so. If you go out and buy steel pipe you're hardly independent from society, same goes for the tungsten picks commonly used; if you're willing to by them you might as well save time and effort and buy finished glassware which will be of better quality than what you can make.

Metal pipe and wire is another example, and don't even mention ball bearings. As watson.fawkes said, it's a great way of learning how complex and interdependent technological society is. It's one thing to step back and do as much as you can with castoffs and salvage, but another to be able to cut the ties and keep them cut.


IrC - 20-3-2010 at 23:37

I see your point but I don't think he is going to extremes. I think he just wants to make as much as he can. Maybe because they are coming down on us so much anymore or just wanting to learn how to create from scratch, or both. I mentioned the Lexan after reading agorot's concerns which were valid ones for sure. Nothing could ruin your day much more than acid flying in your face from home made defective wares. I took his quest to mean how can I do this or that while doing so within reason. Using what you can easily get if for no other reason than the time it would take to build some things such as your wire extruding machine or some such item. I am all for his quest if for no other reason than I have always wanted to do a lot of these things also. Within reason of course. The first Phosphorus production is one example of where I would have to draw the line, who in their right mind would want to smell a big vat of boiling urine? A guy has to have his limitations.

Panache - 22-3-2010 at 07:44

Isn't there a mmorpg out where you can virtually be 'totally independent from society'. I remember i was a tailor in WOW, i made all sorts of cloths, clothing and useful textile items, and it was far easier that actually doing that shit for yourself. Maybe this is an alternative you can explore initially to see if you like it. Although producing the finished items was fun, having to hunt for 47 mountain sheep or something to make the cloth was really tedious and helped me to understand that it's far easier just to buy your clothing from China like everyone else does.
Another way to be totally independent from society is to isolate yourself somewhere inaccessible to others, like Mars. I think you would find some very interesting minerals there. This is my stupidest post yet, ...the skipper too....'

bdgackle - 28-3-2010 at 06:20

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Kevin Dunn's "Caveman Chemistry" -- you can get lots of the material for free from his site. I paid the $15 to download a PDF of the whole ebook, and thought it was worth the read. Basically, he shows you how to go from naked Chimp, to tools, cloth, alkalis, soap, paper, glass, acids, explosives, pottery, dies, ethanol, batteries, metals, even some basic plastics, from the sort of stuff you acquire with a sharp-pointy-stick.

I’m interested in very similar lines to you – even if I don’t produce all of my own soap, bread, and gunpowder, I like knowing that I COULD if I wanted to. Buying magic stuff from the magic factory makes me feel helpless. If I KNOW how to make that stuff, well, then I’m just paying someone to do it more efficiently when I buy it. Whole different mental outlook.

Here’s what I’ve gathered, mostly from above book:
1) Fire can be made from scratch
2) Clay + Fire gets you containers that can survive very high heat, and lets you build a kiln
3) Wood ashes from your fuel gets you mild alkalis -- sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate
4) Calcium nitrate comes from compost or stale urine, mixed with (3), you can get sodium/potassium nitrate (Saltpeter)
5) Sulfer and saltpeter gets you Sulfuric Acid via the lead chamber process, there's a thread on this site.
6) Sulfuric acid and saltpeter gets you to nitric acid (also on this site)
7) Nitric acid gets you to several types of plastics, explosives, and plastic explosives
8) Heat limestone (CaCO3) in your kiln gets you to quicklime (CaO)
9) Add water gets you to slaked lime (Ca(OH)2)
10) 9 + 3 gets you to lye – NaOH
11) 10 + Fat gets you to soap
12) 10 + Fat + Salt, gets you to glycerin
13) Any sugar, and natural yeast, you get ethanol, and acetic acid if you want it
14) I think its possible to get to hydrochloric acid via the above, but don’t remember how to do it (guarantee you’ll find it on this site)
15) Many pure metals are obtained by heating minerals that contain them
16) Charcoal can be made from wood. Charcoal, a little forced air, and an old brake disk gets you a forge hot enough to melt iron – see check You Tube for “Making iron from dirt” for a video of a bunch of guys making a big iron bloom out of basically nothing.

Formic Acid

SWilkin676 - 21-4-2010 at 11:51

Apparently chemists have always been a little crazy. I read that Formic acid was originally created by distillation of red ants.

Who comes up with ideas like that??

How would you catch enough red ants to distill? If you built some sort of trap, what would you do if you got both red and black ants mixed up??

And how do you kill them without releasing the active ingredients or getting it smeared all over your caveman club??

I thought it would be cool to extract metal from rocks too, so I bought some lepidolite and downloaded papers on processing. One guy wrote his masters research on lepidolite processing, but he spent about 6 pages screwing up because he couldn't find ethanol of sufficient dryness and that was the limit of my patience for reading of his efforts! I crushed some up and mixed something in it and watched with fascination as crystals separated and floated to the top.

Thus began my interest in chemistry. (and still haven't gotten into the habit of taking good notes - never have been able to)

Suzee

[Edited on 21-4-2010 by SWilkin676]

Skyjumper - 21-4-2010 at 12:39

or how bromine was first found from I believe sea weed?

Ephoton - 21-4-2010 at 12:39

um there is a thing called suger cain man ill kill your ants and make other things on the way.

like oxalic acid :)

as for how did they kill the ants they boiled them.

bbartlog - 21-4-2010 at 12:42

Quote:
I read that Formic acid was originally created by distillation of red ants. Who comes up with ideas like that??


It seems like it was a gradual progression. That anthills have a distinctive smell has no doubt been known since prehistoric times. Then they observed that the blue flowers of chicory turn red on exposure to these vapors (or to ants in general). Then they just squished the ants to get ant-juice out of them and saw that this, too, had the same result. At that point distillation must have seemed like a pretty obvious way (to those curious souls who had access to the necessary equipment) to attempt to isolate whatever active principle was involved.
Quote:
And how do you kill them without releasing the active ingredients


Pretty sure you'd *want* to squish them to release the active ingredients. Unfortunately a detailed description of the process in English does not seem to be available via Google books; there may possibly be an account by some guy Ettmueller but his stuff is in Latin...

Ephoton - 21-4-2010 at 12:43

truly though I wish I had an ant farm for formic It would make my life so easy.

thats right all I have to do is leave some shit in my pc that is edable.

trust me I have done this by mistake.

I thought id fucked a formic reaction till I had a look at there roasted carceses in my pc.

pc did not last long funny how ants will kill solder and nickel legs when they get roasted.

The WiZard is In - 21-4-2010 at 15:33

Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
Does anyone know of some books or resources that show you how to obtain reagents from nature. For instance, how did early chemists obtain their chemicals for their chemical reactions. Today, people just buy the chemicals from others. How do you start from scratch. Also, a book on how to build chemical glassware from scratch would be awesome too. Thanks.



My favorite —

Ammonium chloride


Mellor - Modern Inorganic Chemistry 8th ed. 1933
CHAPTER XXVIII
COMPOUNDS OF NITROGEN AND HYDROGEN

§ 1. Ammonia-Occurrence and Preparation.

History.-Ammonia was known to the early chemists, and Geber describes
the preparation of ammonium chloride by heating urine and common salt.
Hence the alchemists' term "—spiritus salis urinae",. Ammonium chloride
was first brought to Europe from Egypt, where it was prepared from the "
soot " obtained by burning camel's dung. The name ammonia seems to be
connected somehow with the Egyptian sun-god—Ra Ammon ; ammonium
salts must have been known to the early Egyptian priests. The term sal
ammoniac was one of the early names for ammonium chloride; the
equivalent term sal aarmoniacum" which appears in the translations of
Geber's writings, and which was used for some time afterwards, was pro-
bably a mis-spelling, since the term "salt of Armenia " "—sal arrmoniacum" -
was applied to common salt and to native sodium carbonate.

————
Mellor - Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry [edited]

THE ALKALI METALS

§ 16- Ammonium Chloride

In 1705, L. Lernery first showed that ammonium chloride exists among the
products derived from volcanoes, where he found it admixed with sodium
chloride, and this fact was verified by F. Seras in 1737 and by F. de Bonde
in 1765. Ammonium chloride occures as a sublimate mixed with other
volatile maters in cavities in the neighbourhood of volcanoes and in
crevices in volcanic lava — e.g. at Etna, Vesuvius, Stromboli, Hecla, the
Sandwich Islands, etc. It has been also found in the vicinity of ignited coal
seams — e.g. at St. Etienne, Aveyron, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Bradley (Staffs),
Hurlet (Renfrewshire), West Wemyss (Fife), Arniston (Midlothian),
Bucharia, Kilauea (Hawaii), Waldenburg, Kattowitz, and at Duttweiler
(Prussia). It has been reported in guano from the Chincha Islands ; in
natural salt ; in the mother liquor of some brine springs — e.g. Halle—and
W. Diehl found about 0.01 per cent. of ammonium chloride in carnallite
from Stassfurt. It has also been found in small quantities in the secretions
and exudations of animals—e.g. the urine of the camel.

Ammonium chloride is formed during the mixing of equal volumes of
ammonia and hydrogen chloride gases. When the two gases meet a white
cloud of ammonium chloride appears, but not, say H. von Helmholtz and F.
Richarz if the gases be previously dried. H. B. Baker showed that
combination does not occur if the gases be thoroughly dried, and that a
minute quantity of water is necessary for the reaction If the dried mixed
gases be confined in a vessel fitted with platinum plates with opposite
electrical charges, the two gases are separated-the ammonia collects about
the negatively charged plate, and the hydrogen chloride at the other
electrode. The action is not efectrolytic since no discharge occurs.

Ammonium chloride is also formed by the action of hydrochloric acid on a
soln. of ammonia or ammonium carbonate; J. G. Gentele r, made it by the
double decomposition of ammonium bicarbonate and sodium, magnesium,
calcium, and other chlorides; H. J. E. Hennebutte and E. Mesnard, and A.
Dubose and M. Heuzey, made it by the action of ammonium bicarbonate or
sulphate on the double chloride of iron and calcium; and it is made by the
action of soln. of ammonium sulphate and sodium chloride ; when the soln.
is cone. the crystals of sodium sulphate separate out and thev are removed
by suitable shovels; the cone. soln. of ammonium chloride which remains is
purified by crystallization. Ammonium chloride can also be obtained by
sublimation from a dry intimate mixture of the same two salts. A. French
made it by the joint action of air and steam on a mixture of salt, pyrites, and
carbon or organic matter :

2NaCI+4H2O+SO2+C+N2=2NH4Cl+Na2SO4+CO2.

Ammonium chloride has been observed as a product of many reactions — e.
g. the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate, hydroxylamine
hydrochloride, or hydrazine dihydrochloride, N211602 ; the action of
hydrogen chloride on anhydrous azoimide: 3N3H+HCI=NH4CI+4N2; the
action of ammonia on chloramine: 3NH2C'+2NHS=3NH4Cl+N2; etc. J.
Raschen and J. Brock patented a process in which nitrosyl chloride, NOCl,
mixed with hydrogen is passed over heated platinized asbestos :
NOCl+3H2=NI14Cl+H20- Various proposals have been made to recover
the ammonium chloride formed in the ammonia-soda process when
NaCl+(NH4)HCO3=NaHCO3+NH4Cl+N2

Ammonium chloride was formerly obtained in Egypt as a product of the
combustion of camels dung, which always contains some sodium chloride;
the ammonium chloride was isolated as a sublimate from the soot. In India
dung was mixed with salt and similarly treated. Other nitrogenous products
can be treated in a similar way. The aq. liquids which collect during the
distillation of nitrogenous organic substances, which contain chlorides, also
contain ammonium chloride in soln. with other ammoniacal products. For
example, the ammonia liquor of gasworks, coke-oven plants, shale works,
and blast furnaces is a soln. of ammonia together with a great many salts of
ammonium—e.g. ammonium carbonate, sulphide, sulphate, cyanide, etc.—
and if the coal contains sodium chloride—salty coal—the gas liquor is
almost certain to contain some ammonium chloride. In any case, if the
ammoniacal liquor be neutralized with hydrochloric acid, the ammonium
salts are in a great measure converted into an impure ammonium chloride.
M. Adler converted the ammonium salts in the liquor into the chloride by
treatment with calcium chloride A. WuIfing used ferrous chloride.

It is also practicable to drive off the ammonia from the ammoniacal liquor
by treatment with milk of lime, and to pass the evolved ammonia into a
vessel called a saturator containing hydrochloric acid, cooled by water. If
the, acid is more cone. than corresponds with a sp. gr. 1.1, it loses some
hydrogen chloride when hot. Tile saturator is made of stoneware or some
resistant material since hot hydrochloric acid attacks lead. The liquid in the
saturator contains about 25 per cent. of ammonium chloride, and it is
pumped into a large wooden tank lined with lead. A coil of lead pipe heated
by steam is immersed in the liquid until a film of crystals forms on the
surface. The liquid is then decanted to a leaden vessel, where it is allowed
to crystallize; the crystals are removed, and the liquid run back to the
evaporator along with some fresh soln. The soln. of ammonium chloride is
not allowed to come in contact with iron, for during evaporation some
ammonia is lost, and the acid liquid attacks iron. The ammonium salts can
also be converted into the sulphate by treatment with sulphuric acid, and
subsequently the sulphate converted into chloride, as indicated above.
Ammonium chloride is also made by neutralizing with ammonia the spent
pickling liquor from galvanized iron works which contains a large
proportion of ferrous chloride ; or by treating with ammonium carbonate, or
a mixture of ammonia and carbon dioxide, the soln. of calcium chloride
obtained as a by-product in the ammonia-soda process. On evaporation,
crystals of ammonium chloride are obtained after removing the precipitated
ferric hydroxide, in the former case, and the calcium carbonate in the latter
case.

The purification of ammonium chloride. Crude sal ammoniac is usually
contaminated with iron or tarry matters, and in consequence, the colour
varies from yellow to red; it can be purified by heating it in thin layers on an
iron plate hot enough to drive off the water and free acid, and to carbonize
most of the tarry products, The grey mass is then sublimed. The sublimation
is conducted in cast-iron pots lined internally with firebricks, and covered
with a lid made of slightly concave plates. The salt to be sublimed is well
dried, and heated. Tile pots hold about hall a ton, and the sublimation
occupies about five days. The sublimate forms a solid fibrous crust about 4
inches thick. The crust is easily detached from the lid ; it is then broken up,
separated from adhering dirt, and packed for the market in barrels or sacks.
W. Hempel proposed converting the crystalline salt into hard stone-like
masses by press. between 50o and 100o.

Robert Hunt
Ure's Dictionary of Arts. Manufactures, and Mines
Longman's, Green, and Company
London 1878


AMMONIUM CHLORIDE. Commonly called Sal-Ammoniac. (Sal ammoniac, Fr.;
Salmiak, Ger.) The early history of this salt is involved in much uncertainty. It
would appear that the sal ammoniacus of the ancients was, in fact, rock salt. The
earliest knowledge of the compound has been claimed both for the Arabians and
the Egyptians; but the late Dr. Royle remarked, that 'the salt must have been
familiar to the Hindoos [sic] ever since they have burnt bricks, as they now do,
with the manure of animals, for some may usually be found crystallised at the
unburnt extremity of the kiln.'

This salt is formed in the solid state by bringing in contact its two gaseous consti-
tuents, hydrochloric add and ammonia. The gases combine with such force as to
generate, not only beat, but sometimes even light. It may also be prepared by
mixing the aqueous solutions of these gases, and evaporating till crystallisation
takes place.

When ammoniacal gas is brought into contact with dry chlorine, a violent reaction
ensues, attended by the evolution of heat and even light. The chlorine combines
with the hydrogen to produce hydrochloric acid, which unites with the remainder
of the ammonia, forming chloride of ammonium, the nitrogen being liberated. The
same reaction takes place on passing chlorine gas into the saturated aqueous
solution of ammonia.

Manufacture of Chloride of Ammonium from Camel's Dung.--In Egypt--which un-
doubtedly was the great seat of the manufacture of this salt from the beginning
of the thirteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century, and whence all the
European markets were supplied--the following is the process by which it is
obtained:--

The original source was the urine and dung of the camel, which are dried by
plastering them upon the walls, and burning, other fuel being very scarce in that
country. A fire of this material evolves a thick smoke, charged with chloride of
ammonium, part of which is condensed with the soot.

In every part of Egypt, but especially in the Delta, peasants are seen driving
asses loaded with bags of that soot, on their way to the sal-ammoniac works.

Here it is extracted in the following manner:-- Glass globes, coated with loam,
are filled with the soot, pressed down by wooden rammers, a space of only two
or three inches being left vacant, near their mouths. These globes are set in
round orifices formed in the ridge of a long vault or large horizontal furnace flue.
Heat is gradually applied by a fire of dry camels' dung, and it is eventually
increased till the globes become obscurely red. As the chloride of ammonium is
volatile at a temperature much below ignition, it rises out of the soot in vapour,
and gets condensed into a cake upon the inner surface of the top of the globe. A
considerable portion, however, escapes into the air; and another portion
concretes in the mouth, which must be cleared from time to time by an iron rod.
Towards the end, the obstruction becomes very troublesome and must be most
carefully attended to and obviated, otherwise the globes would explode by the
uncondensed vapours. In all eases when the subliming process approaches to a
conclusion, the globes crack or split; and when they come to be removed, after
the heat has subsided, they usually fall to pieces. The upper portion of the mass
is separated, because to it the white salt adheres; and, on detaching the pieces
of glass with a hatchet, it is ready for the market. At the bottom of each balloon a
nucleus of salt remains, surrounded with fixed pulverulent matter. This is
reserved, and, after being bruised, is put in along with the charge of soot in a
fresh operation.

The sal-ammoniac obtained by this process is dull, spongy, and of a greyish hue;
but nothing better was for a long period known in commerce. Fifty years ago [ca
1828], it fetched 2s. 6d. a pound; whereas now [ca 1878], perfectly pure
sal-ammoniac may be had at one-fifth of that price.

Manufacture of Sal-Animoniac From Bones and other Animal Matter.--

The WiZard is In - 21-4-2010 at 15:37

Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
Does anyone know of some books or resources that show you how to obtain reagents from nature. For instance, how did early chemists obtain their chemicals for their chemical reactions. Today, people just buy the chemicals from others. How do you start from scratch. Also, a book on how to build chemical glassware from scratch would be awesome too. Thanks.



For a readable description of the production of phosphorus from urine &c. —

John Emsley
The 13th Element : The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus
John Wiley & Sons
2000

The WiZard is In - 22-4-2010 at 06:19

Quote: Originally posted by DDbiology2010  
Does anyone know of some books or resources that show you how to obtain reagents from nature. For instance, how did early chemists obtain their chemicals for their chemical reactions. Today, people just buy the chemicals from others. How do you start from scratch. Also, a book on how to build chemical glassware from scratch would be awesome too. Thanks.



Early chemists — a date range would be useful.

You preparing a list of the chemicals they used
would be good start in answering the question.

1281371269 - 22-4-2010 at 10:30

You won't get anything of high purity, but you could try some of the methods that the grandfather of all chemistry used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%81bir_ibn_Hayy%C4%81n

Formatik - 29-4-2010 at 15:41

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In  
... History.-Ammonia was known to the early chemists, and Geber describes
the preparation of ammonium chloride by heating urine and common salt.


Boiling regular urine with K2CO3 or Ca(OH)2 will also form some NH3 since it has urea, though diluted with steam and any volatiles that may be present in the urine, e.g. volatile sulfur compounds from vegetables. Hence, boiling it down also prior to base treatment will get rid of those.

Also, some description from me of heating aqueous urea with K2CO3 or NaOH can be found in this thread: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4800

[Edited on 30-4-2010 by Formatik]

The WiZard is In - 29-4-2010 at 15:52

Quote: Originally posted by Skyjumper  
or how bromine was first found from I believe sea weed?


Close. Bromine was isolated from sea water which remained
after the crystallization of salt from the salt marshes of
Montpellier by A. J. Balard 1824.

Araon J Ihde
The Development of Modern Chemistry
Harper & Row 1964
Dover Reprint

Bernard Courtois (1777-1838), the discoverer of iodine, was the son of a saltpeter
manufacturer in Dizon. The elder Courtois assisted Guyton de Morveau when the latter
lectured on chemistry at the Dijon Academy. After a pharmaceutical apprenticeship,
Bernard was given an opportunity to study under Forncroy at the École Polytechnique
of which Morveau was director. For a time young Courtois was active in pharmaceutical
circles, but he joined his father when the saltpeter business was faced with financial
difficulties.

At that time, the ashes of seaweed collected along the coasts of Normandy arid Brittany
served as a source of sodium and potassium salts. One day in 1811 young Courtois
observed clouds of purple vapor rising from mother liquor which had been acidified with
sulfuric acid. The vapors, which had air irritating chlorine-like odor, condensed on cold
objects in the form of dark crystals with a metallic luster. A study of the properties of
these led Courtois to suspect that he had discovered a new element. However, the
press of business activities and the inadequacy of his laboratory facilities caused him to
turn over his chemicals to Charles-Bernard Desornies arid Nicolas Clement, two
chemist friends. These men reported the new substance in 1813. Courtois became
active in the manufacture of iodine, but others investigated its chemistry. Davy and
Gay-Lussac independently established it as an element. Its relationship to chlorine was
immediately apparent, and tire, oxygen-free nature of hydrogen iodide was generally
accepted.


--
djh
---------------------------
The Chymists are a strange Class of Mortals, impelled
by an incomprehensible Impulse to take their Pleasure
amid Smoke and Vapour, Fume and Flame, Poison and
Poverty - Yet among all these Evils, I seem to live so
sweetly that may I die if I would change places with the
Persian King!
Johann Beccher

Acta Laboratorii Chymica Monacensis, seu
Physica Subterranea, (1669)

Random - 7-5-2010 at 23:59

Quote: Originally posted by ninefingers  
Jules Verne describes his castaways in The Mysterious Island cooking pyrite (Iron Sulfate) ,water, and copper sulfate that they dug out of the soil. These distilled into S03 and H20; forming H2SO4. Then they cooked manatee fat into soap with wood ashes; leaving glycerin in the bottom of the pot. The Sulfuric acid and saltpeter from seagull dung made, of course, nitric acid for their nitroglycerin.

Also, burning sulfur with saltpeter produces sulfuric acid.

I dig old synths, too. :) I have a lot of bone meal (Calcium Phosphate et al) that I am going to calcine in a crucible to get Phosphorus, I hope.:(

[Edited on 3-20--10 by ninefingers]


CuSO4 decomposes to SO3 at 650 °C, with the addition of water it becomes sulfuric acid. You can do electrolysis of the CuSO4 solution and then boil it to concentrate it but be careful as it could release SO3. You will have h2so4.

According to wikipedia, this is how you can get blue vitriol:

MgSO4(aq) + 2 H2O + Cu(s) → H2(g) + Mg(OH)2(s) + CuSO4(aq)


But does this work with every sulphate compound I am not sure, I should try that with this:

calcium sulphate + water + copper ==> hydrogen + calcium hydroxide + copper (ii) sulphate

not_important - 8-5-2010 at 01:27

There is this concept referred to as the electromotive series or electrochemical series.
Code:
____________________________________________________ | | | Electromotive Series of the Metals | | from Lange's Handbook of Chemistry, Eighth edition,| | Handbook Publishers Inc., Sandusky, Ohio, 1952. | | | | Metal Voltage | | | | Magnesium -2.34 volts | | Beryllium -1.70 | | Aluminum -1.67 | | Manganese -1.05 | | Zinc -0.76 | | Chromium -0.71 | | Iron -0.44 | | Cadmium -0.40 | | Nickel -0.25 | | Tin -0.14 | | Lead -0.13 | | Hydrogen -0.13 | | Copper +0.34 | | Silver +0.80 | | Palladium +0.83 | | Platinum +1.20 | | Gold +1.42 | |____________________________________________________|


Any metal below hydrogen will not react with proton sources (acids, H2O) to form H2. Copper is below hydrogen, it will not release H2 from water or acids.


You left out a very important part of that Wiki section:
Quote:
It can also be prepared by electrolysis of magnesium sulfate ...

the electric current is what drives the reaction, which actually is not that simple one given but rather two reactions, SO4<sup>2-</sup> reacting with Cu and 2 'protons' to form CuSO4, and Mg<sup>2+</sup> and water reacting at the cathode with 2 electrons to form H2 and Mg(OH)2.

Low solubility sulfates such as CaSO4 will not work very well, their solutions have only a low concentration of ions and are not very conductive. Ca(OH)2 is also slightly soluble, and so would react with the CuSO4 in solution. Al2(SO4)3 would work better.

The temperature of decomposition of most sulfates is high enough that the SO3 mostly breaks done into SO2 and O2, this has been covered in one of the currently active sulfuric acid threads if you want more information..


Random - 8-5-2010 at 01:47

It looks it's not possible then, thanks for explaining it to me :)

Mildronate - 8-5-2010 at 01:55

You can make yourself glasware there iscouple of books about Scientific Glassblowing
here is some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnmSz8A5yc&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-jEywA-T0&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-jEywA-T0&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh95--jOpx8&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNBC9F_d3QM&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmgftOMneXc&playnext_from...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHOyAcCqXQA&playnext_from...

I had some books about scientific glacblowing. In my university is Scientific Glassblower too (he made retort for me).

not_important - 8-5-2010 at 06:47

Quote: Originally posted by Random  
It looks it's not possible then, thanks for explaining it to me :)


No, that's not what I said. What I implied is that you simple do not bother to really research these ideas you keep popping up, and just run with your first generally rather incomplete impression.

Most of of the reagents you are after have long discussions related to them, read those might help understand possible issues, your idea may have already been discussed, and generally one or more of the old threads is the proper place to be asking questions. In this case you might learn that SO3 is difficult to absorb in water, and that SO2 + O2 has potential for making H2SO4. You'd also see that I gave a reference for information on the decomposition by heat of a number of sulfates.

Wikipedia is best thought of as a Cliff Notes reference. The information given is frequently a quick overview and is rather incomplete if you actually want to perform a process given; the information given is just plain wrong at times as well. If something there looks interesting, you need to read any references given and/or chase down better detailed information elsewhere.

Random - 8-5-2010 at 10:54

Quote: Originally posted by not_important  
Quote: Originally posted by Random  
It looks it's not possible then, thanks for explaining it to me :)


No, that's not what I said. What I implied is that you simple do not bother to really research these ideas you keep popping up, and just run with your first generally rather incomplete impression.

Most of of the reagents you are after have long discussions related to them, read those might help understand possible issues, your idea may have already been discussed, and generally one or more of the old threads is the proper place to be asking questions. In this case you might learn that SO3 is difficult to absorb in water, and that SO2 + O2 has potential for making H2SO4. You'd also see that I gave a reference for information on the decomposition by heat of a number of sulfates.

Wikipedia is best thought of as a Cliff Notes reference. The information given is frequently a quick overview and is rather incomplete if you actually want to perform a process given; the information given is just plain wrong at times as well. If something there looks interesting, you need to read any references given and/or chase down better detailed information elsewhere.



Well, all of those ideas are because I have very limited access to the chemicals so I am trying to make them from the simplest substances. Of course, I am trying some of them currently.

As for the easiest way to make sulphuric acid is maybe electrolysis of water solution of CuSO4 like in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dUSF9Gl0xE

crystalXclear - 19-4-2011 at 09:07

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver  
Cinnabar when "roasted" yields mercury (I have NOT tried this) but did get some samples.[Edited on 19-3-2010 by quicksilver]

Was the cinnabar red?, if so **BE WARNED** If you hold it in your hand for a minuite or two, apon opening your hand up, you will see silver beads of mercury. So keep it in a suitable glass tube when handeling.

I know, I sell the stuff.

I love Nervada, it has a wealth of mineral specimens.

The WiZard is In - 19-4-2011 at 10:57

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  

Pretty sure you'd *want* to squish them to release the active ingredients. Unfortunately a detailed description of the process in English does not seem to be available via Google books; there may possibly be an account by some guy Ettmueller but his stuff is in Latin...


----------
A system of chemistry,
Volume 2 By Thomas Thomson
1810

[OCR'd by Google.com/books]

This acid is first. mentioned in the Philosophical History.
Transactions for 1671, in a paper by Mr Ray, giving an account of
the observations of Mr Halse, and the experiments of Mr Fisher, on
the acid juice which is spontaneously given out by ants, and which
they yield when distilled *. Mr Fisher compares this liquor with
vinegar, but points out some differences between them. Scarcely
any addition was made to these facts nil Margraff published a
dissertation on the subject in the Berlin Memoirs for 1749, in which
he describes the me- . ' thod of obtaining the formic acid from the
formica rvfa, or red ant, and points out its properties with his
usual precision and method f. A new dissertation was published on
the same subject by Messrs Arvidson and Oehrn in 1782, in which
the discoveries of Margraff were confirmed, and many new
particulars added. Hermbstadt's paper on the same subject
appeared in Crell's Annals for 1784. His researches were directed
chiefly to the purification of the formic acid. He demonstrated that
the juice of ants contained several foreign bodies, and among
others, that a portion of malic acid might be detected in it. Richter
published experiments ou formic acid about the year 1793,
pointing..... &c., &c.

http://tinyurl.com/3rjtvdo

Someone -- should pop down to the BNL or some such and
pull the original paper. Or order it through la Intralibrary Loan.
Just tell the librarian that We will never find a cure for cancer
if I don't have this ....

Hades_Foundation - 19-4-2011 at 11:24

You can find loads of books on torrent sites. More than you can ever read. I looked for some a while ago, now I 've got 6000 of them, haven't even had time to read the titles...
search terms like 'chemistry', 'organic', 'survival', 'banned books', military manuals' 'paladin press', 'TEOTWAWKI', 'how to', etc... should give some results.

Potassium salts from wood ashes

bbartlog - 23-4-2011 at 17:31

Following is a description of my semisuccessful attempt at extracting potassium carbonate and potassium sulfate from wood ashes. If you don't like long posts, move on to the next one...

Having heated my house with wood last winter, I ended up with a full 55 gallon drum of wood ashes. I decided to try to extract some pearlash from these.
I screened some of the ashes into a garden cart through 1/4" hardware cloth to remove some of the larger contaminants (mostly unburned charcoal) and weighed out 15kg of the resulting ash into a 30 gallon HDPE tub. To this I added 30kg of water. The resulting mass (which resembled freshly mixed concrete) I stirred two or three times a day over a period of three days, then let settle for a day.
Unfortunately not much settling occurred and only a small volume (~3 liters) of clear liquid could be decanted from the top of the tub. Seeing now why all of those 19th century texts describe leaching by filtering water *through* the ashes, I changed my approach and transferred the mass (in two portions) into a five gallon bucket with holes in the bottom and a layer of straw, then used 15kg further of water to leach more salts from the ash.
This yielded 19kg of a slightly yellowish liquid, sp gr 1.02 and pH 12. Obviously, more than half of the 45kg of water used remained trapped in the wet gray mass of ash, and thus the ley contained less than half of the available soluble matter; but as I didn't want to deal with boiling down a significantly larger volume of ley, I decided to discard the wet ash rather than leach it further.
This liquid presumably contained potassium carbonate, sulfate, and chloride (see 'The soap maker's handbook' from 1912, by Carl Deite, Alwin Engelhardt, F. Wiltner, p155, for one discussion of the soluble constituents of wood ash).
The ley was heated in a stainless steel stockpot at somewhat below boiling (about 80C) for several days until the volume was reduced by ~80%. The 3.8kg of amber colored liquid resulting had a specific gravity of 1.09 and a pH of 13. This was filtered and transferred to a smaller stainless steel pot and boiled down with a further ~70% reduction in volume. At this point small crystals began appearing on the surface, boiling was stopped, and on cooling a crop of light tan colored crystals was obtained. These were filtered out and washed twice with methanol (IPA would have been better, but methanol was what I had handy). On drying, 53g of a salt, presumed to be potassium sulfate, was obtained.
I did to few tests to confirm that it was not some other salt:
- a spatula added to 10ml of concentrated HCl gave no effervescence, so it wasn't a carbonate
- 3g were dissolved in 30ml of water (this required warming the water slightly, which is broadly consistent with the solubility of potassium sulfate), and this solution was added to a similar solution of CaCl2; after a few minutes a white precipitate formed (presumed: K2SO4 + CaCl2 -> CaSO4 + 2KCl). This suggests that the compound was not (at least not mostly) a chloride.
- the pH of 1g of the salt dissolved in 10ml of water was 9. This is *not* consistent with potassium sulfate (a neutral salt) but I attribute it to incomplete washing of the sample before drying, so that a small amount of KOH or K2CO3 still contaminated the sample
- neither heating it to 300C nor subsequently leaving it to sit in damp air for a couple of days changed the mass of the sample (49g), so it was not a hydrate salt nor a hygroscopic material.

Returning my attention to the remaining ley (now at sp gr 1.27), I repeated the previous step of boiling until crystals began to form and then cooling it. This time, only 10g of crystals were obtained on cooling. Further, the pH had actually dropped to 12 or so; I attribute this to the gradual conversion of the small amount of KOH in the ley to K2CO3 by atmospheric CO2, which apparently had now been completed after many hours of uncovered heating.
This crop of crystals did show a slight effervescence on addition of a spatula to an HCl solution, so I concluded that the K2CO3 was beginning to crystallize out. However this small crop might well have been a mixture of compounds and I discarded it rather than attempt further analysis.
The liquid was now boiled to dryness, with constant stirring so as to form a tractable bunch of granules rather than a rock-hard lump. 340g of a light brown crumbly salt were obtained.
This was transferred to a thin-walled steel canister with a tight-fitting lid that had a small hole punched in it. Pearlash was historically purified by heating to drive off or burn the impurities (see for example US patent #1, though in that case the ash is burned before leaching). The canister was placed in the glowing coals of my wood stove and a fairly hot fire (dry wood) built around it.
Unfortunately, my fire was hot enough to melt K2CO3 ... I would have thought it could reach 700 or 800C, but was somewhat surprised to see it reach 900C (melting point of potassium carbonate) without me using coal or any sort of forced air. Further, the canister I used was unsound in that it had a rolled seam at the bottom. Not only does fusion of the salt impair purification, but a third or more of it leaked out as well.
After cooling, I obtained a gray hard mass, which I broke out of the canister with a hammer. Black impurities coated it where it had touched the steel. The fragments weighed a total of 216g.
These were dissolved in an equal mass of cold water and then filtered, yielding 336g of a very pale yellow liquid of sp. gr. 1.47 (yes, the impurities were a lot of the remaining mass). I boiled this in a 500ml beaker to reduce the volume from 230ml to 150ml, then let it cool gradually (wrapped and covered in cloth). White crystals precipitated and the remaining liquid now had a specific gravity of 1.53, which, while not *quite* high enough for a truly saturated solution of pure K2CO3 at 5C (see: http://www.armandproducts.com/pdfs/k2so3P33_46.pdf for data), was close enough to be reassuring.

Crystals were filtered and 60g of crude K2CO3 hydrate obtained. Unfortunately this was left to sit on a watch glass overnight, and in the damp conditions resulted in deliquescence of the material with some of the resulting puddle pouring over the edges of the watch glass.
I recombined the now-mostly-liquid K2CO3 hydrate with the remaining solution and boiled it to dryness over a burner, with occasional stirring to prevent the formation of a single solid cake. This yielded 106g of white granular material, presumably K2CO3. In addition to being deliquescent it effervesces vigorously when a spatula is added to HCl, and yields a solution of pH 11 when 1.4g are dissolved in 100ml of water. While it is no doubt mostly K2CO3 I expect that there are still some impurities, maybe KCl or else other carbonates. Nonetheless it would pass for a pretty good pearlash circa 1845...
Overall this is a rather disappointing yield given the amount of K2CO3 that I estimate was present in the original ash (maybe 4%, i.e. 600g... though some references say you can get 10% from the ash of leafy/juicy plants, this was almost all hardwood ash, which is not as rich in potassium). Still I was pleased to get something given the number of mistakes made in the course of this extraction.

First picture shows crystals after boiling down to 150ml. Second shows later boiling to dryness. Third is potassium carbonate (106g) on the left, potassium sulfate on the right. Fourth is the K2CO3 on the watch glass before it turned itself back into a puddle of liquid.


Crystalline_K2CO3.jpg - 17kB Dried_K2CO3.jpg - 26kB K2CO3_K2SO4.jpg - 22kB

Pre-deliquescence.jpg - 38kB

Neil - 24-4-2011 at 19:16

Caveman chemistry was already mentioned, but here is a link to most of it on Google books

http://books.google.ca/books?id=JOtJKgWkPuQC&printsec=fr...

Chestofbooks.com is one of my favorites

Here is a search for 'charcoal' in chestofbooks - tons of good stuff on metal refining and preservatives made from natural materials.

http://chestofbooks.com/search.html?cx=000348145676127462126...

As for noticing that red ants (Formica ants :D) contain acid, they actually spray it from their abdomen. Try wafting smoke over a nest and watching their response, mind your eyes. You notice when you're working next to a nest of them when exposed skin begins to hurt and suffer from prickles of burning sensation.


If you really want to get down, dirty (how dirty?) really dirty, try this link
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/texts.html

If nothing else their random mixing of things like sulfur and Mercury will make you glad we live in an age of MSDS sheets.


There are a number of black smithing books pre-1900 but there is a distinct lack of literature about smelting via bloomeries.
this site http://iron.wlu.edu/ is a wealth of information - Good luck if you try it. You'll need it! For the most part if you have any sort of flowing water which moves into swamps, or aquifers which emerge in a lake, you likely have Bog iron just waiting to be picked up.


And if you get really bored/tired of good health you could always turn to "The Golden Book of Chemistry" by Robert Brent. Lots of neat ideas, lots of really bad practices. All meant to be done with readily available materials.

http://chemistry.about.com/b/2008/08/05/banned-book-the-gold...

Edit: This is a neat one too
An encyclopædia of agriculture By John Claudius Loudon 1825(not 100% sure of the date)
PDF download

[Edited on 25-4-2011 by Neil]

GreenD - 24-4-2011 at 19:44

To the OP:

Firstly, there are many books I have read (but don't know the names of or anything) that contain what you're looking for - everything from biologically active materials - tryptamines, sedatives, vitamins & minerals, nootropics, analgesics, fertilizers, growth hormones, etc can be found in "Edible Plants" books. Look for ones where the author seems to care - ones with hand drawn pictures are always the best.

Secondly - I would suggest that you take advantage of the wastefulness of society. I don't buy much of my stuff - I find it around, or at a very reduced price (recyleing plants and junk yards). I would really recommend this. In order to get to the current chemical techniques employed today, you are going to have to take some short cuts from the men of old.

Such as finding a vacuum pump, finding old waste barrels (oils, terpentines, acids) etc. Asking friends & family for those weird chemicals in the basement - windshield washer fluid is 90%+ methanol, for example.

Beyond that, I don't really have any interest in obtaining inorganic materials from natural sources. Metals and complexes don't interest me. The chemistry of biology is all I care about, so for me I'll buy all the reagents I want - but I'd rather get the substrates from nature - a 100% renewable source, and preferably my own backyard.

Pine trees have turpentines and terpenes - good solvents and reagents for cyclic additions and such (lots of unsaturated bonds). Fruits (like the skin of an orange) has limonene - an important solvent.

The buds of willow trees have gallic (sp?) acid the most potent plant-growth hormone found.

Of course some of my favorite extractions are the aromatics from flowers. Oh god do I start to giggle when I enter a nice smelling greenhouse.

In some mosses and bog plants there are stimulants and caffeine (relevant to where I live). And of course there are other things to take from plants but they are very well documented on here.

I would say the suggestions so far are great, and the older the chemistry books you find - the better. I've recently been interested in buying antique pharmacology, chemistry, and biology books, as the writers were much more fascinating (and fascinated! back then).

"edible plants" will take you on some great journeys as well - don't underestimate the number of plants out there worth eating.

Neil - 24-4-2011 at 20:11

Quote: Originally posted by GreenD  

The buds of willow trees have gallic (sp?) acid the most potent plant-growth hormone found.


Do you perhaps mean Salicin which can be used to synthesis Salicylic acid?

The WiZard is In - 25-4-2011 at 10:49

Quote: Originally posted by GreenD  

I would say the suggestions so far are great, and the older the chemistry books you find - the better. I've recently been interested in buying antique pharmacology, chemistry, and biology books, as the writers were much more fascinating (and fascinated! back then).

My favorite book for Practical Chemistry in an British journal —

Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry.

A few back I was lucky to find Vol. I (1882) to XLVIII (1920) plus a few
index's &c., for sale at Abebooks.com. After I ordered them
received an email from the seller ... Just got them from the
warehouse - they are in poor condition, I am will to reduce the
price by US $500 (which in addition saved me $40 in sales tax) and
pay the shipping. (They weighed a bit over 300 lbs.) A few
volumes can be found at Google.com/books.

Watt's 1899, 4-volume Dictionary of Chemistry and others
I don't have time to list, can also be had at Google Books.


djh
----
At a Scottish wedding the bridegroom, as was
customary at a wedding breakfast, arose to
respond to the toast of the health of the bride. He
was not used to public speaking and, words
failing him, he contented himself with the response,
"Well, there's naething wrang with the woman" ; and
in proposing the toast of "Applied Science" he
should like to point the moral of this story, and say
that there was nothing wrong with it ; that it was in a
state of absolute health, and in this country, as well
as in others, it was in a state of marvelous fertility,
and as each branch of Applied Sciences was apparently
capable of producing any number of other branches of
Applied Science, as time went on they might expect
a somewhat numerous family.

Sir William Ramsay K.C.B.. D.Sc., LL.D., IF.R.S.
Bradford, Wednesday, July 15, 1903.


Neil - 25-4-2011 at 17:37

I love this book but can not find it as a PDF :(

http://bookdome.com/science/Glass-Manufacture/

title Glass And Glass Manufacture
Author Percival Marson
Publisher Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd
Year 1922
Copyright 1922, Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd

watson.fawkes - 25-4-2011 at 19:58

Quote: Originally posted by Neil  

title Glass And Glass Manufacture
Author Percival Marson
http://www.archive.org/details/glassglassmanufa00marsuoft

food - 25-4-2011 at 21:12

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
extracting potassium carbonate and potassium sulfate from wood ashes. ... SNIPPED ... weighed out 15kg of the resulting ash into a 30 gallon HDPE tub. To this I added 30kg of water.


:o

I envy your large scale capabilities!

bbartlog - 26-4-2011 at 07:50

Quote: Originally posted by GreenD  

...The buds of willow trees have gallic (sp?) acid the most potent plant-growth hormone found.


You are almost certainly thinking of gibberellic acid, not gallic acid; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibberellic_acid .

Gallic acid is interesting in its own right but is not a plant hormone at all as far as I know. Once the sumac trees on my land leaf out in a month or two I'm going to try to get some gallic acid from them en route to pyrogallol:
- leach tannins/tannic acid (20% content in some sumac)
- hydrolyze to gallic acid and precipitate
- decarboxylate

Quote: Originally posted by food  

I envy your large scale capabilities!


Thanks :-). It helps when you're dealing with extractions where the yield is expected to be in the low single digits. What's described there isn't even my limit; I have a discarded fuel oil tank (still sound) on my property that I might yet use for some similar operation, and it must have a volume of a couple thousand liters. I may also post sometime about my second attempt at a functioning nitre bed, which as of now contains nearly a ton of organic matter; but only if I get some nitrate out of it.


Nitre_bed.jpg - 139kB

Random - 26-4-2011 at 10:12

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  

Gallic acid is interesting in its own right but is not a plant hormone at all as far as I know. Once the sumac trees on my land leaf out in a month or two I'm going to try to get some gallic acid from them en route to pyrogallol:
- leach tannins/tannic acid (20% content in some sumac)
- hydrolyze to gallic acid and precipitate
- decarboxylate


How are you going to leach tannins from sumac and extract gallic acid from that exactly? I see some sumac trees waiting to get leached.

bbartlog - 26-4-2011 at 13:40

Well, my guide at the moment is 'Wood products: distillates and extracts' (Paul Dumesny, J. Noyer, 1908) ... available on Google Books. Chapter VIII is titled 'Manufacture and Use of Sumac Extract' and seems detailed enough that I think I can implement the processes described, though I would still like to find a reference that describes the tannic acid content of the sumac species I have here, or that gives some hint as to when the leaves should be harvested for maximum yield.
As for the later steps, I'm assuming I can hydrolyze the (highly soluble) tannic acid to (only slightly soluble) gallic acid via dilute mineral acid, e.g. HCl, and then collect the precipitate. The pyrolysis I will have to read more about, I know Scheele did it but I haven't found a detailed treatment. On the other hand there's a lot of general information on this board and elsewhere about pyrolytic decarboxylation of aromatic compounds so I may just use that.

The WiZard is In - 26-4-2011 at 18:55

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
Well, my guide at the moment is 'Wood products: distillates and extracts' (Paul Dumesny, J. Noyer, 1908) ... available on Google Books. Chapter VIII is titled 'Manufacture and Use of Sumac Extract' and seems detailed enough that I think I can implement the processes described, though I would still like to find a reference that describes the tannic acid content of the sumac species I have here, or that gives some hint as to when the leaves should be harvested for maximum yield.
As for the later steps, I'm assuming I can hydrolyze the (highly soluble) tannic acid to (only slightly soluble) gallic acid via dilute mineral acid, e.g. HCl, and then collect the precipitate. The pyrolysis I will have to read more about, I know Scheele did it but I haven't found a detailed treatment. On the other hand there's a lot of general information on this board and elsewhere about pyrolytic decarboxylation of aromatic compounds so I may just use that.

Having a few ideal minuets before before a assume a supine
position on my bed to spend a hour reading (The Wall Street
Journal, New Scientist and the Economist are penciled in for
tonight) .... pulled my copy of Ettore Molinari's Treatise on General
and Industrial Organic Chemistry 1913 from the shelves...

You can access what I found at Google books.

http://tinyurl.com/444sr52

If it rains hard on the morrow and I have a few spare moments
I'll see what else my shelves yield.

Byda there is a second volume of Molinari with an obvious title.

The WiZard is In - 27-4-2011 at 06:35

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
Well, my guide at the moment is 'Wood products: distillates and extracts' (Paul Dumesny, J. Noyer, 1908) ... available on Google Books. Chapter VIII is titled 'Manufacture and Use of Sumac Extract' and seems detailed enough that I think I can implement the processes described, though I would still like to find a reference that describes the tannic acid content of the sumac species I have here, or that gives some hint as to when the leaves should be harvested for maximum yield.

This ain't rocket science.....

Grabbed off la shelf my copy off —

Samual P Sadtler
A Handbook of Industrial Organic Chemistry
JB Lipincott 1900

This from the 1910 ed at Google Books

Sumach consists of the powdered leaves, peduncles, and young
branches of Rhus coriaria, Rhus cotinus, and other species of
Rhus. Thus, Sicilian sumach, the most esteemed variety, is from
R. coriaria; Spanish sumach is from several species of Rhus, and
comes in three varieties, Malaga, Molina, Valladolid; Tyrolean
sumach from R. cotinus; French from Coriaria myrtifolia; American
from R. glabra, R. Canadense, and R. copallina. The leaves are
collected while the shrub is in full foliage and cured by drying in the
sun. They are then ground under millstones and the product
baled. The sumach contains from sixteen to twenty-four per cent.
of a tannin whieh seems to be identical with gallotannic acid. The
American variety contains usually six to eight per cent. more than
the European, but also contains more of a dark coloring matter,
which renders it inferior to the Sicilian sumach for white leathers.

bbartlog - 27-4-2011 at 12:31

Thanks Wiz! That second reference is more useful than Molinari (who would however be a great help if I were actually looking to tan leather with my extract), but both are interesting.

The WiZard is In - 27-4-2011 at 13:12

Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog  
Thanks Wiz! That second reference is more useful than Molinari (who would however be a great help if I were actually looking to tan leather with my extract), but both are interesting.

Luck day for U. Google books has this so I am not tempted to
scan my copy.

Chemistry, theoretical, practical, and analytical: as applied and ... V.2
By Sheridan Muspratt, Eben Norton Horsford

Tanning Materials P. 492-512

http://tinyurl.com/6gbj4vj

NB — p. 507 Table of the average quantity of tannin in different substances.

Byda - Muspratt in toto is 1668 pages.

There is a most complete list of Tanning Materials in —

Chemistry as Applied to the Arts & Manufactures
By Writers of Eminence
nd

V. VI p.314-15

Neb neb; Cutch; Samak; Gaub; Boomah, &c., &c.

Before you tan... you got's to.....

Bating

Perhaps the most curious of all the processes involved in making leather is that
of bating. Little is known of it origin because it was a secret process, but it is at
least some centuries old. After the skins are taken from the lime liquors,
unhaired, scudded, and washed, they will contain lime in the form of carbonate
and in combination with the skin proteins. At this stage they are plump and
rubbery and tanners have experienced many difficulties due to putting the stock
directly into certain types of vegetable tan liquors when it was in this condition.
The object of bating it to prepare the unhaired skins for tanning and originally
consisted in keeping them in a warm infusion of the dung of dogs or fowls until all
plumpness had disappeared and the skins had become so soft as to retain the
impression of thumb and finger when pinched and sufficiently porous to permit
the passage of air under pressure. When hen of pigeon manure was used, the
process was called bating, and when dog dung was used, it was called puering,
but the tem bating is now applied to the process generally, regardless of the
material used. The difference in terminology naturally disappeared with the
advent of artificial bating materials.

A common method for treating light skins was to put them into a vat filled with a
liquor containing about 100 grams of dog dung per liter, kept at a temperature of
45o C. by means of steam. A paddle wheel kept the liquor and skins in motion.
During the action , the skins gradually lost plumpness acquired in the lime liquors
and became soft and raggy. The completion of the process was determined by
the attainment of a certain degree of flaccidity, which the workmen could judge
only after long experience. Hen or pigeon manure was sometimes used for light
skins, but was more commonly applied to heavy hides because it penetrates
more rapidly than dog dung, due apparently to the fact that it contains also the
urinary products, especially urea.

John Arthur Wilson
The Chemistry of Leather Manufacture
ACS Monograph Series
The Chemical Catalog Company
New York, 1923

---------
Alumed Calf Skins for Bookbinding

To alum them, put into a large vat three or four pails of dog’s turd (this dogs’ turd
is called alum) ; on this they fling a large pail of water to dilute it ; this done, the
workman goes into the vat, and with his wooden shoes, tramples it, filling the vat
half full of water. The “alumer”, on his part, pours water out of his boiler into this
vat, mixing it with the cold water, after which he flings in the skins, string them
and turning them for some moments with great sticks.

Morocco Leather

The river work finished, the skins are put into the “dogs’ confit, or mastering” ; for
every four dozens of skins they add one bucket of dogs’ excrement, containing
fourteen or fifteen quarts, which is worked up with their hands into a kind of pap
and well diluted. The skins are flung in, stirred and worked in the “mastering” for
some minutes, then turned and left to rest.

The Art of Tanning and Currying Leather, with an Account of all the Different
Processes made use of in Europe and Asia for Dying Leather Red and Yellow,
Collected and Published at the Expense of the Dublin Society, to which are
added Mr. Philippo’s Method of Dying the Turkey Leather as approved of by the
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc., and for which he had a reward of
£100, and their Gold Metal, for the Secret. Also the New Method of Tanning
invented by the late David Macbride, M.D., London. Reprinted for J. Nourse, on
the Strand, Bookseller to His Majesty. 1780.

In :—
Joseph Turney Wood
The Puering, Bating & Drenching of Skins
E. & F. N. Spon, Ltd. London, 1912