Analyzing wood ash - Cations

In this video the most abundant cations in a sample of wood ash are determined.
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00:16 Intro
00:34 Testing pH
01:53 Sodium, potassium, calcium (Flame test)
02:56 Calcium
04:20 Iron
05:03 Manganese (Oxidizing melt)
07:08 Mangaese (Oxidizing melt 2)
7:47 Summary

[@TacticalCaveman997]

Now this is the science I like. Analysis of over looked stuff.

[@eduardoGentile720]

Wow this is something original, I'd love to see other sample analysis

[@eduardoGentile720]

@Johnathan Thatherton Is this a reference to something that i don't get?

[@Anon-ot5fj]

Loved every minute of your video.Please do more simple analysis like this

[@LaxmanIITR]

Very good experience to watch this experiment. You are very good at explaining

[@plokoon4217]

Nice original video, not many channels do actual analisys. Keep up the work!

[@rajeevyadav4569]

Really something very special

[@Swagnermite]

Nice! I've always wondered what was in wood ash

[@Tralbi8]

Very interesting experiments! Amazing video

[@Izzygates]

Wow, amazing video. Once these ions have been determined in the ashes, is there a way to separate them and recover them?

[@Anar10n]

1:39 so how do chemists grow a third hand

[@Taha-hv6yj]

Great video, is it possible to extract more manganese? Can you please do a video for testing heavy metals in soil or water? Like cadmium and mercury?

[@RaExpIn]

Unfortunately, the amount of manganese is so low, that I'd guess you would have to process tons of ash just to get a few grams of manganese. The reason that the permanganate can be seen is due to its very intensive color, making even small amounts visible. I have plans to do a video, that could practically be used to test for every metal in a sample of soil, as long as the concentrations are somewhat higher than usual.

[@dol--lod282]

@@RaExpIn I can't wait for it!

[@tahallium]

If iron was toxic like heavy metals and ferrocyanide doesn't make blue color does that mean the iron is in safe amounts ?

[@mikaljan]

wow, very interesting video!! really learnt a lot from this video! thanks for making it, as always keep up the great work!!!!!

[@ahmadbusiriray.ahmadbusiri4957]

STP,,,

[@buhumiputra.641]

Good

[@chemicalmaster3267]

+Random Experiments Int. - Experiments and syntheses Excellent! I loved the video! Do you think you post more videos regarding analytical chemistry, separation, isolation and determinations of ions? And by the way, do you have any ideas on how to extract salicylic acid from bark of certain willow trees of the salix species? I couldn´t find any good procedure on that.

[@garycard1456]

ChemicalMaster, see the video: "What Victorian Comdons Were Made Of" (Victorian Pharmacy- a Victorian-era re-enactment documentary on the channel: Absolute History). The part of relevance to your question on extracting salicyclicacid/salicylate from Salix species begins at approx 18mins into the video. The extraction technique featured in this documentary replicates what pharmacists would have used in Victorian-era Britain, but the extraction solvent used and the fundamental principles behind the natural product extraction technique are, of course, relevant today. Only, if you are intending on performing this yourself, I'd advise on using modern jointed (Quickfit, etc) organic chemistry glassware. Unless, of course, you wish to source some vintage Victorian-era scientific laboratory glassware (good luck with that!).

[@RaExpIn]

There are several methods to extract salicylic acid. You could do a solvent extraction like in the video recommended by @Gary Card or you could try increasing the solubility by directly extracting with an alkaline solution, concentrating it and then acidifying it. One of the more sophisticated methods to extract a lot of organic compounds is a steam disillation. Salicylic acid is actually one of these compounds that can be extracted like that.

[@garycard1456]

@@RaExpIn Another interesting route: if one has access to a wintergreen bush (Gaultheria procumbens), they could steam distil the essential oil (which contains the ester methyl salicylate) and perform an alkaline hydrolysis of the ester to yield salicylic acid and methanol.

[@garycard1456]

@@RaExpIn Maybe one could use Soxhlet extraction?

[@RaExpIn]

Soxhlet extraction would be ideal, but I thought it might be too sophisticated.

[@tahallium]

Wouldn’t calcium hydroxide react with other carbonates?

[@natekloepfer1571]

Could you also use a water-soluble thiocyanate salt to test for the presence of iron? The iron thiocyanate precipitate is blood red.

[@RaExpIn]

This should work, because most of other usual cations in ash do not react with it or form colourless precipitates.

[@akhilthechemist]

U didnt test for magnesium it is an important mineral in plants as it constitutes the chlorophyll.

[@tahallium]

God I did something really stupid by making a lot of calcium acetate from vinegar and calcium hydroxide I bought as chaux calcique here from a tunisian cement factory and not food grade calcium hydroxide so I'm concerned about if there's heavy metals in my calcium hydroxide :( I should've bought the food grade stuff, now I don't know if there's thallium or cadmium arsenic mercury or even uranium in my calcium acetate and I don't work with gloves The worst thing is when I added 5kg! ALL I HAD Ammonium nitrate (I got because I gave my friend my DSLR ) to the chaux calcique to make calcium nitrate and ammonia gas but now I'm too scared to process my solution because I think there's thallium or uranium in it :( I'm so mad I hate when I ruin something safe with toxic heavy metals :( and I can't get more NH4NO3 in my life because my friend broke my DSLR

[@demonsheadshot8086]

Any plans on burning of rubidium and caesium? I know they are pretty expensive but you coul distill your own

[@RaExpIn]

I'm already working on it :) The video about potassium was a result of this channel growing slowly. So, it won't be long until I can afford burning a few grams of Rb or Cs. :)

[@chemist27]

4:47 sir can we make Prussian blue by just using wood ash in large amount if so what would be the yield

[@RaExpIn]

This would surely only give a bad yield of a few percent. It sounds strange, but to make ferricyanide, back then. People used to cook wood ash, iron nails and animal waste for hours or days and filtered off the remains. The filtrate contained the iron(III) salt, when the pot was open during cooking and the iron(II) salt, when the pot was kept closed. I always wanted to give it a try.

[@chemist27]

@@RaExpIn oh very interesting Thank you sir for the response

[@DavidMills_Physicist]

Can you be sure your iron detection wasn't from residual contamination from the HCl?

[@RaExpIn]

I didn't include all the blind tests, because I didn't think that these were too interesting. In addition to that I'm always using high quality or analytical grade acids and I take care that there are no contaminations. :)

[@DavidMills_Physicist]

@@RaExpIn Thank you. This video has given me some thoughts on doing a similar set of tests with students in the summer.

[@RaExpIn]

This was actually a part of my idea. :) I wanted to analyse something that students might recognise from everyday life. And I wanted somewhat simple tests with reagents that are not too exotic. :)

[@scottgreg2967]

@@RaExpIn thanks for clarifying, that is great to know. Do you have to purchase these acids yourself (are they expensive?), or do you have access to them through work or school?

[@RaExpIn]

In germany you can buy most acids legally online, when you're at least 18 years old, as long as it is not oxidizing. Costs are between 4 and 18€ a litre, depending on the acid and purity. But I only have to buy new acid every 2-3 years, because I don't really need large quantities.

[@BracaPhoto]

I wanna do this with my urine - see what's REALLY there 😂

[@almirpacheco]

Faltou verificar a presença do Magnésio.