Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Caught boiling urine

Adipocerex - 22-7-2016 at 15:35

A man was caught by the police boiling urine, what do you guys think the purpose was?

Good ol'e 1669 Hennig Brandt Phosphorous extraction? Or to isolate other salts?


http://wwlp.com/2016/07/21/man-caught-boiling-urine-in-amher...

violet sin - 22-7-2016 at 16:01

Call in the bomb squad, hazmat etc. for boiling urine? Seriously? That is crazy to me, and the cost of such overreactions, unjustified. Guess we will have to wait to see what all is discovered there. But I bet it gets swept under the rug if they cant nail the guy with sticking charges.

Zephyr - 22-7-2016 at 17:48

Perhaps he was trying to extract narcotics from addicts' urine?

DraconicAcid - 22-7-2016 at 18:02

Or maybe he was an SCA member trying to make woad.

RogueRose - 22-7-2016 at 18:24

Perhaps to see what was in it, how much of whatever is in it - is in it and or if he has a normal level of whatever that is in his "solution". Alchemists of the past thought gold might have been able to be isolated from it. Maybe he was re-hashing that line of thought?

DraconicAcid - 22-7-2016 at 18:34

Quote: Originally posted by violet sin  
Call in the bomb squad, hazmat etc. for boiling urine? Seriously? That is crazy to me, and the cost of such overreactions, unjustified. Guess we will have to wait to see what all is discovered there. But I bet it gets swept under the rug if they cant nail the guy with sticking charges.


They didn't know what it was when they were called- just that he was doing something chemical-seeming in an apartment. They probably wouldn't have been called at all if the neighbors had been able to put up with the smell, or if they knew what he was doing. For all the cops knew, it could have been a meth lab with stuff spilled all over the place.

These are American cops, remember- just be glad they didn't shoot some random black guy on their way over.

pepe - 22-7-2016 at 18:39

Quote: Originally posted by Zephyr  
Perhaps he was trying to extract narcotics from addicts' urine?


Its doubtful for the majority of drugs since most detection tests look for byproducts of their metabolism but there is a "rumor" of sorts around the rave scenes that up to 80% of the MDMA that someone takes is excreted via the urine. I don't know if its true but in any case I could easily see some idiot trying to find out.

But on the larger issue, for a country that prides itself on freedom, liberty and all that good stuff, not being able to boil your own pee without the bomb squad showing up is pretty messed up.

The Volatile Chemist - 23-7-2016 at 13:54

DA, kinda funny, kinda sad...:/
They said the urine could be 'reduced' to some compound or other. Is phosphorus liberated through any process of reduction?

blogfast25 - 23-7-2016 at 14:10

Did they check his pagan witch license? :D

battoussai114 - 23-7-2016 at 14:33

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  
DA, kinda funny, kinda sad...:/
They said the urine could be 'reduced' to some compound or other. Is phosphorus liberated through any process of reduction?


Maybe they based themselves on the OC rule of thumb that losing Oxygen means reduction. Y'now, PO4-3 ==> P
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Edited on 23-7-2016 by battoussai114]

DraconicAcid - 23-7-2016 at 15:40

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist  
DA, kinda funny, kinda sad...:/
They said the urine could be 'reduced' to some compound or other. Is phosphorus liberated through any process of reduction?


I'm sure they were thinking of "reduced in volume", not electrochemically reduced.

violet sin - 23-7-2016 at 18:15

I got curious as to what this individual could be doing, so I typed in "boiling urine" and looked through the first few returns. EWWW

drugs forum - amphetamine

"Ive heard of meth "pee labs". My GOD. This HAPPENS. "

https://drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184205
_____

Meth Users Turning To Urine To Get High
By Heather Brown, WCCO
February 2, 2007

"(WCCO) When Wright County deputies opened up a smelly rented storage locker last June, they had no idea what they would find. Inside a man had stored 50 gallon jugs of urine."

"I said, 'Oh my gosh, this is a meth lab, this is a urine extraction lab,'"

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-291207.html

Tsjerk - 24-7-2016 at 07:32

I guess the methyl group on the amine in mdma and meth protects the molecules against mao's making it possible to excrete trough urine.

skip - 24-7-2016 at 08:50

He was probably trying to make urea. But only a very small amount can be obtained unless you have a tanker truck full of pee. If someones says you are doing ANY type of chemistry and call the law. You're done, thanks to breaking bad and all the meth heads. usa is fucked.

NEMO-Chemistry - 24-7-2016 at 09:34

Maybe he just dont like drinking it cold! Loads of people drink their own piss, it is said to be good for you (great for powering over unity machines as well!).

So maybe he just prefers it a little stronger and warm.

Personally i am more a piss taker than drinker.

Herr Haber - 24-7-2016 at 12:35

Ewww !
I tried extracting urea from my piss when I was a kid on the balcony. More than 25 years later, just thinking about the smell makes me sick !

Morgan - 24-7-2016 at 18:19

I was just reading The Onion and came across this possible explanation.

"But police said Thursday morning the "chemical" was actually distilled urine the tenant was using for medical reasons."
https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/4tyclh/man_coo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UqDkUJgvc

Loptr - 25-7-2016 at 06:30

The article says that he was caught doing it before, or something similar, just at a different location.

That has got to be embarrassing!

mayko - 25-7-2016 at 06:57

Quote: Originally posted by Loptr  
The article says that he was caught doing it before, or something similar, just at a different location.

That has got to be embarrassing!



I guess you could say that this criminal was....

:cool:

... hard boiled.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Adipocerex - 25-7-2016 at 08:09

I am almost certain that he did it to extract P from phosphates. All the other salts or even unmetabolized substances would be hard to precipitate separately and especially in his instance since he boiled the urine, he didn't even distill it to avoid smelling up the complex. I believe he just found the recipe and want to make WP. Which then can be used for production of illicit substances.

Loptr - 25-7-2016 at 09:21

Quote: Originally posted by Adipocerex  
I am almost certain that he did it to extract P from phosphates. All the other salts or even unmetabolized substances would be hard to precipitate separately and especially in his instance since he boiled the urine, he didn't even distill it to avoid smelling up the complex. I believe he just found the recipe and want to make WP. Which then can be used for production of illicit substances.


There are easier ways of doing it than starting with urine, though! I believe that Hennig Brand boiled down about 5500 liters of urine to get a little over 100 grams of phosphorus. That's a lot of work for such a small yield from large quantities of starting material.

DraconicAcid - 25-7-2016 at 10:06

One would think bones would be a better starting material. I'd rather have my kitchen smelling of boiled-clean bones (mmmm....soup) than boiling urine.

Loptr - 25-7-2016 at 10:40

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
One would think bones would be a better starting material. I'd rather have my kitchen smelling of boiled-clean bones (mmmm....soup) than boiling urine.


Yeah, but then instead of investigating him for a meth lab, it would be a homicide investigation as him being a cannibal or psychopath, or some other similar line of thinking. There wouldn't be anyway they would just let him do it in peace.

"I don't understand it, so it has to be wrong."

I can't tell you the number of times my wife has asked me if it illegal to buy things and resell them on eBay, or here even. Where did the thinking that if it isn't a common method of doing something, or done without a public advertisement that your doing it, that it is somehow illegal come from? Wtf?!? This is the thinking that the government wants to bestow upon its people in an attempt to create a nanny state.

"If you question it, its probably bad and they should be doing it, so let us know."

Now, with that being said, I certainly wouldn't want a neighbor in an apartment to be boiling urine. That much is for sure. I don't know how I would go about handling it, though.

[Edited on 25-7-2016 by Loptr]

Herr Haber - 25-7-2016 at 14:11

Quote: Originally posted by Loptr  

Now, with that being said, I certainly wouldn't want a neighbor in an apartment to be boiling urine. That much is for sure. I don't know how I would go about handling it, though.

[Edited on 25-7-2016 by Loptr]


I see several options here:
a) Be nice and offer them a way to do what they are doing without stinking up the whole place.
b) Ring their bell, complain and during the argument vomit inside their appartment. Preferably on their shoes.
c) Eye for an eye; synthesize your thiol of choice or make the equivalent with selenium. Use a syringe under the door during the night to deliver your gift. Other alternatives come to mind using bleach and NM or picric acid. Fould smelling molecules are so numerous that you might be able to chose which one best suits your need. They are boiling piss? Make some skatole and spray in on their door ! Feeling lazy and you have some pyridine? Use it as it is :)

Method c might decide your other neighbours to call the cops. At that point, why not serve them with one of the theories about getting Meth from piss and be certain that the nuisance will go away.
Call me a bastard if you will, I train hard :cool:

nezza - 4-9-2016 at 00:15

I just have to watch the BBC. That boils my piss.