Making Nitrate With Electricity

[@emilmckellar4932]

the hand makes me think of Sesame street. "Today kids we will be making the NO3- ion. Dont bother your mom when she enjoys her wine just make some nitric acid with us"

[@front2760]

Just watched a different one before this but the hand was there to.

[@schinderiapraemeturus6239]

very interesting. thoughts for scaling up, increase surface area of cathode/anode, perhaps a copper sheet or copper piping smashed down to form a rectangular surface. Perhaps a mild steel container used for the outside housing so the container becomes the anode surface. And I am a big fan of using small solar cells for running electrolysis reactions

[@kyliemcwynne]

Would love to see this scaled up ☺️

[@ChristmasEve777]

His first electrolyzer was a good scaled-up version, actually. He only needed to put a lot more amps through it and convert all of that ammonia and potassium hydroxide. To pull more amps without drastically increasing the voltage, he could move the electrodes as close together as possible and use much bigger and flatter electrodes.

[@Slowly_Going_Mad]

How have I missed this? I have been wondering if this was even possible and here it is. Wow. Excellent cover on this and good video. Thank you.

[@d.jensen5153]

Very interesting! I've never seen this before. The approach I've always wanted to try would involve a large plastic bucket filled with urea/water solution into which a sack of landscaping pumice was added. An aquarium pump and an airstone would be used to oxygenate and circulate the solution. Over the course of a couple of months I would expect nitrifying bacteria to convert the NH3 to NO3-. The pumice would provide a substrate with lots of surface area for the bacteria to anchor to. Perhaps a bit of compost added at the beginning would inoculate the batch. I don't need the KNO3 - it's abundant here - I'd just be doing it just to see if it worked. While it would take some time, it would be very hands-off and would require very little energy. If it succeeded, it might produce a lot of nitrate. If it failed, I'd still have fertilizer for the lawn. Perhaps the pH would have to be monitored, and if it got too low, KOH would be added as needed.

[@bromisovalum8417]

Make a "nitre bed" like they did in the days of the civil war. Collect pee and manure, let it ferment in heaps for a year then extract nitre from that with boiling water

[@d.jensen5153]

@@bromisovalum8417 I've read the entire document written by Joseph LeConte in 1862. It's fascinating and informative! But its methods are a wee bit bucolic, anachronistic, and desperate.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

I love this as an idea. One could take a tiny 1% fraction of the circulating water perhaps and bring it to a boil while capturing the evolved gas in a chilled water container that could be slowly replaced when it reaches a high enough concentration. If a steady state can be achieved it could work as long as the weather holds.

[@Preyhawk81]

and? any success?

[@Preyhawk81]

you can buy nitrobacter starter kit for aquaristic use. So you dont need to bring impurities to the pumic.

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

im now doing this btw and also trying out stainless steel electrode aswell because rather not have lead nanoparticles or other being an issue. I have made a few changes tho. 1. using urea rather than ammonia because urea wont fuck off and evaporate away and also wont cross the membrane easily. 2. Urea decomposes at the anode chamber into CO2 which makes carbonate. 3. Sodium hydroxide used instead of potassium hydroxide. 4. boiling down the mixed salt solution then adding acetic acid since hydrochloric cannot be used Acetic is fine to use overall since there isnt a huge likelihood for it to react in solution. 5. adding KCl to the mix to precipitate out KNO3 in a hot saturated mixed salt solution with everything else being very soluble except KNO3.

[@ScrapScience]

Love it! I'm keen to see how it turns out

[@KallePihlajasaari]

Yep, Urea solution is available in most locales as a reasonable quality reagent for use as Ad-Blue in Diesel engines. This would be my favourite source material. I think Urea should be easier to extract from urine rather than waiting for bacteria to convert it to Ammonia.

[@f4grx]

Can you elaborate a bit more? diy cosmetics shop here has quite pure and cheap urea. I am very interested in your experiment. Did you need to do that at a cold temperature? That is the bit that bothers me. a room temperature solution would be ideal. Whats the use of acetic acid in your experiment?

[@f4grx]

@@KallePihlajasaari I leave piss chemistry to nile red. I think I prefer the smell of pure ammonia, lol

[@Tridenux]

hey mister, can you make a video on it?

[@dpasek1]

You made Schweizer's reagent with the Cu hydroxide and ammonia. This is a solvent for cellulose, so you really need to use a different material than paper for your separator.

[@ScrapScience]

Thanks for pointing that out! I never thought of that.

[@Unmannedair]

I've never heard of that, but it's sounds like a good thing to know. I'll look it up. Thanks

[@xunicholas165]

Please make more videos, I can't live without them!

[@jimparsons6803]

Liked the demo. And the general approach. Thanks. Garage style chemistry. One of my Professors, back in the day, was an Electro-Chemist. Knew really a lot about batteries and corrosion. I learned a lot from him. One of the better, more portable lessons was skepticism.

[@wonderwang1585]

Test of nitrate by copper oxidation in acidic medium, i learned it in high school 50 years ago , finally it has a way to apply to.

[@Unmannedair]

You can use freeze fractional distillation to increase the concentration of store-bought ammonia for your starter product.

[@johnslugger]

*_Converting ammonia (NH3) into nitrate ions (NO3-) at the anode. SIMPLE ELECTRON LOSS._* Ammonia (NH3): Ammonia is a compound that consists of nitrogen and hydrogen. It's often found in household cleaners and fertilizers. Anode: The anode is the positive electrode in an electrolytic cell, where electricity is applied to drive a non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Oxidation: Oxidation is a process where a substance loses electrons. In the context of ammonia, the nitrogen in ammonia is oxidized.

[@Tridenux]

Cam we urea by this way ?

[@seymourpro6097]

The important aspect of electrochemistry is that production is usually proportional to current flow. SO while your experiment made you a few grams of nitrate, pounds(or kilos) of nitrate will require a large number of amphours. Maybe a solar panel and battery could run a cell at 1 amp for months to make product?

[@alllove1754]

I saw somewhere that someone used gelatin as a diaphragm component, two chambers, a little tube filled with gelatinized electrolyte and essentially both anode and cathode produced intended elements (it was a sodium hydroxide and chlorine generator)

[@jastintheceooffinanasapost6204]

Actually the guy from the video did that, so maybe you saw a posterior video

[@alllove1754]

Let me make what I was saying visually clear, because although he got a success, I was referring to the method I witnessed string success with: picture two cylindrical salt shakers, one for salt, one for pepper, but both emptied out. Now both have a hole cut into their sides (plastic shakers) and this hole has a short piece of drinking straw bridging both of them, like an "H". Inside that straw you can put the gelatinized substrate, or even use wet toilet paper jammed in there. They were making chlorine and lye, but their focus was lye. I think this is cool, that you can make ammonia become nitrate. I've even an interesting paper on making hydrazine with electricity (mercury cathode, hydrazinium amalgamation going on). Hope I cleared up what I doted on earlier.

[@6alecapristrudel]

"...because we're doing electrochemistry and it's just gonna work anyway" Have you tried to get a bright metal plating yet?

[@chuckles1808]

That line made me laugh, I've got a bad history with electrochemistry.

[@ScrapScience]

I haven't actually done any metal plating at this stage (aside from a tiny copper plating experiment I did way back in 2017). I'm honestly not particularly knowledgeable on proper metal plating, so I've kind of avoided the topic so far. I'll definitely cover it one day, but it'll be a long time before I've gathered enough info on the topic to make content about it.

[@f4grx]

Well you're hard, metal plating is a separate art.

[@nivekakninblarg8076]

All the most difficult reactions seem to involve unstable chemicals that are difficult to extract.

[@alexwang982]

Yeah thats why they’re unstable

[@nivekakninblarg8076]

@@alexwang982This one is unstable because it's a condensation reaction.

[@alexwang982]

@@nivekakninblarg8076 yes, and by definition all unstable things are hard to extract

[@koukouzee2923]

That's brilliant Keep up the good work mate

[@bromisovalum8417]

Why not use a Tyvek envelope as diaphragm? Tyvek is cheap and semipermeable, air can penetrate it but not water. So that should make it ideal for use as diaphragm in electrolysis. It's also very resistant against acids, bases and organic solvents.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

That would be great but odd that it is not more popular as it is a cost effective commodity product.

[@petevenuti7355]

I too found it hard to believe that it would actually work! Particularly the question of why hasn't it been done before or done more before in hundreds of years!! I'm going to ask around about more conclusive tests and try myself! And if this works I don't see why electrolytic reduction of nitrate to nitrite wouldn't

[@ScrapScience]

If you're looking for more info on the topic, this paper came out not long after I published this video: doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202101557 This goes much deeper into the mechanisms and possible reaction products than I ever could.

[@comando1911]

Fantastic work my friend! Keep up the awesome work! We need more chemistry channels!!! Keep spreading information!

[@drmarine1771]

Great effort mate. Keep them coming.

[@bigjay875]

Just came across your Chanel the other day and it has quickly jumped up to the top 5 chemistry channels I like to watch keep up the good work,. But quick question, and I would love to hear other people's views I need to buy a DC power source or converter and I'm not quite ready to buy a welder, what brand or models have you all had good luck with

[@ScrapScience]

A simple lab bench power supply will serve you well as a DC power source, usually in the price range of $50-100. If you don't want to spend that much money, you can also salvage an ATX power supply from an old desktop computer (though these don't offer controllable voltage or current).

[@a.kjfhkziujsfdgbskjxfyhgfl2332]

@@ScrapScience you can hook them up to a cheap buck regulator with current control and use a multimeter to set it

[@pieterveenders9793]

@@ScrapScience It's not that hard to hack an ATX computer power supply into an adjustable power supply, especially for someone with some basic electronics knowledge. All you need to do is look up the schematic for your ATX, and using that find out the location of the feedback section. By replacing the feedback resistors with a potentiometer you can make the ATX into an adjustable power supply. Just make sure you turn it into a 1-12V adjustable power supply and not anything over 12V, as the capacitors are not meant for a voltage much higher than that and will pop. You could of course replace the capacitors with 25V, 35V or even 50V electrolytic capacitors, but for electrolysis that's utterly useless because you never use more than the original 12V in any type of electrolysis anyway, and often even just a couple of volts.

[@geniusdude8975]

U have my full support

[@bigjay875]

Great winter project

[@myth-termoth1621]

Oxidation of cupramine ? Cool !

[@sirhaydn-1]

I actually tried to do this with the copper catalyst and it ended up not working. Then I remembered, I have a platinum anode which already is a catalyst, so just for fun I did it without the copper catalyst and I ended up producing something which looks like dirty potassium nitrate solution. The ammonia smell is gone, I’ll have to see whether any nitrate crystallizes out. I was using a clay pot as a diaphragm. Also I forgot how smelly ammonia was.

[@ScrapScience]

I was told at some point that platinum is generally quite good at anodically decomposing nitrate ions, so I haven't bothered trying to use a Pt anode for this reaction. Nonetheless, I wouldn't be surprised if you got a good yield anyway, since nobody seems to really know what's going on with the reaction overall.

[@sirhaydn-1]

@@ScrapScience just a curious question. Why didn’t you use a clay pot as a diaphragm for this one? Were you trying follow the paper as close as possible?

[@ScrapScience]

That was the main reason. Additionally, clay pots are rather restrictive on the current flow compared to other diaphragm options, and this process doesn't require perfect separation of the two chambers. Using paper allowed for a lower cell voltage (increasing the energy efficiency) and was easier to implement on a small scale.

[@sirhaydn-1]

@@ScrapScience aah that makes sense. Sorry if it seems like I’m in the comments sections in all of your videos. I’m just gathering more information so I can repeat some of your experiments except with a platinum anode and some other modifications. I want to see if the platinum could help as a catalyst for some of these reactions and help to increase the yield and efficiency of these electrochemical processes. Then I am going to see whether My knowledge could help improve things. I could even make a document cataloguing my results for repeating and improving your electrochemical processes ( if I do go down this route, I will give you editing access). I will of course still give you credit. See you in a couple of days, bye.

[@ScrapScience]

Haha, there's no need to apologise. Getting and responding to comments (especially ones like yours) is by far my favourite part of KZbin. I'll be super interested to see your results in these areas, and I'll look forward to hearing from you in the future if you decide to persist with these experiments. All the best!

[@edwardvassell4371]

would you consider doing the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide from water using tin electrodes or the manganese dioxide catalyzation of ammonia to nitrate?

[@user-pp3yi5tv7l]

Very nice video. I'm going to try this myself if I can get my hands on KOH and CuSO4.

[@danieljohnson3024]

I've made copper sulfate from Epsom salt and copper electrode. Get lots of magnesium hydroxide as a fine precipitate that is a pain to deal with, but it's doable.

[@user-pp3yi5tv7l]

@@danieljohnson3024 Thanks, I did the same but with sodium bisulfate a while ago. Unfortunately it forms sodium sulfate which is also water soluble and it's hard to separate. I eventually got almost pure CuSO4 through fractional crystallisation. I ended up with roughly 20g.

[@BackYardScience2000]

You can easily find both on ebay for very cheap.

[@user-pp3yi5tv7l]

@@BackYardScience2000 I know, thanks. In Germany there is an online shop dedicated to chemicals and labware which is quite cheap. 1kg of CuSO4 costs ~8€ vs. eBay ~14€. In the future I will order from them.

[@f4grx]

@@danieljohnson3024 I am currently making copper sulfate with epson salt. clay pot, copper anode and cathode, about one liter of solution and 200g of epsom salt in each cell. It seems to work, I am currently concentrating the sulfate solution and letting it crystallize. I boiled two batches (around 2 liters) To be sure the anode solution did not contain magnesium sulfate anymore, I let the reaction run for very long, and the cathode started growing copper hydroxide as well. So I have BOTH magnesium and copper hydroxide at the cathode. I was scratching my head to separate them and recover the copper. After basic wikipedia/google search, I found that ammonia solution will complex the copper but NOT the magnesium! And an attempt (outside, damn that stinks!) showed that yes, the solution turns beautifully blue and the magnesium hydroxide can be filtered out. So I think this is a good method to get copper ammonium complex of correct quality for use in this experiment, which I will try as soon as I get a smaller clay pot lol. I am not sure the copper sulfate I obtain is actually free of any remaining magnesium, but recrystallization should help, since epsom salt is very soluble, probably much more than copper sulfate.

[@pedestrianrights1257]

Science is a type of bravery. Good job.

[@seditt5146]

Ya really need to just start using Clay pots for a divider. You can even run the backwards with the electrolyte prior to putting the reactants in to prevent any migration through it as it loads up the barrier with ions that act to transfer the charge while denying migration of solutions. It's generally neglectable amounts that move through, but some electrochemical reactions are sensitive and it's just good form.

[@ScrapScience]

I've used clay pots many times in my other videos. They're fine, but for this instance, I wanted something smaller with a lower ohmic resistance.

[@seditt5146]

@ScrapScience Ah ok gotcha. Never really paid much attention to the resistance aspect of it but I am curious if you by any chance ever checked the difference between simply running a claypot cell with and without preloading the barrier. I'm just curious as that's part of the preloading step of running it backwards first so the ions get arranged in such a way to act as a physical barrier like what we have here in your cell but one that facilitates electron transport without needing the ions themselves to actually move essentially acting as a conductor. Idk it's been pushing 15 to 20 years since I really sunk my teeth into all this and wondering if you ever did resistance test under those conditions.

[@ScrapScience]

I don't really understand the difference 'preloading' the diaphragm would do. Sure, it may allow the cell to draw more current at the beginning of the run, but the ions will start moving naturally as time passes anyway. Can you explain the 'barrier' aspect you're talking about? As far as I understand it, diaphragms like these should not conduct electrons.

[@Prchemist06]

Can I use ammonium chloride instead of ammonium hydroxide instead? Because I don't have any ...

[@ScrapScience]

Since I'm not certain on the reaction mechanism, I'm not entirely sure (I do think it's unlikely though). Provided you do it in a basic enough solution (with enough potassium hydroxide), the ammonium ions will tend to form ammonia anyway, so it's possible that it might work. However, the chloride ions are very likely to interfere with the anode reaction and will also make things difficult to crystallise out. Additionally, I'm not sure how you'd form the catalyst complex unless you have plain ammonia. You can actually make ammonia by the reaction of ammonium chloride and sodium hydroxide. I have a video on that topic linked in the description. (the video uses ammonium sulfate instead of ammonium chloride but the reaction works the same)

[@Prchemist06]

@@ScrapScience thanks,but I had tried it 100 times and it failed I don't know why it doesn't produce any hydroxide. Do I have to heat the solution too ?

[@ScrapScience]

Yep, you definitely need to heat the reaction to drive off most of the ammonia. Using as little water as possible will help too.

[@Prchemist06]

@@ScrapScience okay,what is stiochemitry for producing 150ml or 250 ml of 25% ammonium hydroxide .

[@ScrapScience]

You can't really work out the perfect stoichiometry, since the reaction will give you a highly variable yield. To get 250mL of 25% ammonium hydroxide, a ballpark figure is to use around 150g of NH4Cl and around 120g of NaOH. If you want the '25%' figure to be in terms of ammonia instead of ammonium hydroxide, you can use twice the amount of reactants.

[@lazychris2000]

6:00 The device you used for electrolysis is pretty cool looking! Is it homemade?

[@ScrapScience]

I'm afraid it's not homemade, but it was extremely useful when I didn't have the budget for a lab bench power supply. It's just a simple $15 buck converter (with controllable voltage/current) from Ebay.

[@firas4912]

Great information, but low yeled reaction . Thank you very much

[@urgot-bo1lz]

Would homemade glass welded distillation setup hold up?

[@henricoderre]

Hi Harry. I used a magnesium anode electrode and carbon cathode electrode to precipitate less reactive metals out of solution, Will magnesium also be extracted? Or, is it excluded from the extraction.

[@agritech802]

Excellent video, thanks for sharing

[@cristiii7605]

Is there a problem if the temperature is a bit higher?

[@ScrapScience]

Based on some research that came out a little after I made this video, the synthesis still apparrently works at room temperature. I'm yet to try it though.

[@Preyhawk81]

Another methode of making nitrates near no one knows is the oxidation of ammonia on alkalien survaces OH groups oxidize to nitrate on high speed at 250C and above near one to one. The stroner the OH Group, faster goes the reaction . CaOH istn as good as KOH. presence of copper , nickel , Mn, Silver, ions catalyze also this reaction. Oxides doestn work it must be hydroxides. Karl A. Hofmann wrote an work about it me be you can finde an english version in the web. I think the mechanism is the same as for the anodic oxidation .

[@usefulemptiness2410]

Isn't the ammonia solution basic enough? Do you lose product in the form of ammonium nitrate that stays in the solution? (I'm not a chemist by far, so please excuse newbie questions)

[@ScrapScience]

These are actually great questions! As little as I know about the actual mechanism of ammonia oxidation here, I can actually answer these ones. First of all, the ammonia solution is probably basic enough at the start of the experiment, that’s correct, but when most of the ammonia has turned into nitrate, we would lose the basicity. Adding potassium hydroxide solves this issue, since it can be added in excess. Also, ammonia solution by itself is actually not very conductive, since most of it does not ionise when dissolved in water. So, adding potassium hydroxide helps with conductivity too. The formation of ammonium nitrate is also hindered by the presence of potassium hydroxide. In strongly basic conditions, the formation of the ammonium ion is hindered. In this case, a mixture of potassium hydroxide and ammonium nitrate would simply rather exist in solution (for the most part) as ammonia and potassium nitrate. Hope that makes sense, but let me know if not!

[@usefulemptiness2410]

@@ScrapScience Thank you for encouragement and a long, nice informative answer. My spontaneous ideas reading your answer is that the copper catalyst would have solved the conductivity problem. If nitrates at large were the desired end product they might be more useful in the form of ammonium nitrate. But then tetraamine copper nitrate sounded like an even worse possibility to lose product. So, your points ring true from those views as well, if my ideas are close to what may happen.

[@jozefnovak7750]

Super! Beatiful! Thank your very much!

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

u should also try using Ir-Ta MMO it would easily be usable with less crud but considerably more expensive. Paper definitely would be the best choice here or any NF membrane would work too which is just coating paper or fiberglass in nitrocellulose or PVC with no need for any further treatment. The copper somewhat prevents the decomposition of nitrate on the anode but copper hydroxide or oxide would be a better choice.

[@ScrapScience]

Thanks for the tips! I've always kind of wanted to get an Ir-Ta MMO anode, so I suppose this'll be a good excuse to finally get one. :) It seems like paper definitely does a pretty good job, much better than I expected honestly. I'm interested as to why copper hydroxide/oxide makes a better choice for the catalyst than the carbonate additive though. I just assumed that they would all work the same once the tetraammine complex forms in solution. Why does it make things different?

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

@@ScrapScience copper carbonate maybe the reason why you ended up with some potassium carbonate at the end so if you instead use copper hydroxide theres less chance of that.

[@ScrapScience]

Ah I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

[@Tridenux]

Sir @CatBoy 😢😮, you are too much professional at this topic, can you please make a video by using, urea, carbon rod, sodium,

[@moosehead4497]

Copper carbonate will also contribute to the amount of potassium carbonate. Probably more than from the air

[@emilmckellar4932]

If you simply added the KNO3 to H2SO4 it should produce NO2 and easy to see and smell. But still a nice proof of concept even at a dismal yields of 20%. I still would say that producing NO3- by the oxidation of herbivore excrement the way it was done in tears yinder are more effective with less input and much better yield

[@theglorioussunman]

i wanna see how to make ammonia from nitrate. ammonia is not available for me

[@philouzlouis2042]

Pure urea from Addblue additive for Diesel cars (about 350g/L) is your saviour... Urea + NaOH will set free a lot of NH3 gas aswel as Na carbonate. Beware that NH3 is a war gas and it will be quite volatile and irritating above 12% especially with skin and wet membranes like eyes, nostrils, mouth, lungs... you may go up to 23% but keep it as cold as possible to limit volatilization... Wear closed googles/diving mask. You may do it from personal urine what contains on average 3% by weight urea (30g/L) and about 95% water. But you would maybe need concentration from freezing, evaporation or precipitation via unsoluble or poorly soluble salts of urea (nitrate, oxalate or cyanurate). I hope this helps. PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from Science Madness forum)

[@SIGSEGV1337]

@@philouzlouis2042 NileRed extracted urea from urine, it's an expensive and arduous process don't bother. You can get urea fertilizer on Amazon.

[@theglorioussunman]

@@philouzlouis2042 Thank you so much! If I make a contraption where the ammonia gas will bubble in water will I be able to capture it as NH4OH?

[@elektronikzmbrtlar1586]

@@theglorioussunman yes you can

[@philouzlouis2042]

@@SIGSEGV1337 Yes urea ... not ammonia... Nilered purified urea from his urine and recristallized it until colorless. Here we only need to concentrate it and react it with NaOH to allow gaseous NH3 to come out (only volatile compound formed) and react with cold water or an acid solution... I have urea fertilizer about 25kg...but it may contain biuret, triuret and cyanuric acid. Addblue is very pure urea saturated aqueous solution that cost about 8-9€/10L thus for 3,5kg pure urea.

[@ab_ab_c]

How much does this process cost, compared to just buying potassium nitrate?

[@ScrapScience]

That will depend on how easy it is for you to get potassium nitrate, how much the potassium nitrate costs, how much ammonia costs, and how much your electricity costs. Overall, this is probably going to be much more expensive than buying nitrate directly, but I'm interested in the reaction because nitrates are not an over-the-counter product where I live.

[@myth-termoth1621]

Um, do you think it is plausible that the actual reaction in the literature involves electrolytic production of ozone and the reaction of ozone with ammonia to make nitrate ? Several other KZbinrs react ammonia with electrical discharge generated ozone to perform this synthesis. In Wikipedia's ozone entry it suggents ozone production is favored by low temperature, prescence of sulphuric acid and lead dioxide, and some overvoltage. If this is so it might be possible to synthesize ammonium nitrate from ammonium sulphate with a lead anode at the bottom of a tall narrow anolyte compartment ? Using a lead anode might be expected to be advantageous as it would oxidise to a lead dioxide anode and lead dioxide can be a catalyst for ozone production The prescence of sulphate and possible persulphate at the anode should make it unlikely that lead will disolve. I am thinking ammonium sulphate in both compartmnets. If enough nitrate and sulphate collect in the anolyte it might be possible to distill off the nitric acid and leave the sulphuric

[@ScrapScience]

Interesting, that's definitely a possibility. The only issue I can see is that by performing the electrolysis in acidic conditions, the resulting ammonium ions - as opposed to the neutral ammonia molecules for basic conditions - will be repelled by the anode. I'm not sure whether the hypothesised ozone-ammonia reaction will be hindered by this (I suppose this would only be the case if the oxidation were exclusively an electrode surface mechanism, so I imagine it wouldn't), but it might be something to keep in mind. While this would be a very interesting thing to try, I might have to leave the experimentation to others in this regard. Only from the reason that lead-based electrodes are required. While I've used lead electrodes in the past, I've had many issues with them and would rather not use them again for toxicity reasons alone. However, if I ever upgrade to a better lab setup, where I can more effectively deal with any lead-based mishaps, I'll definitely remember to try this!

[@myth-termoth1621]

@@ScrapScience Yes, on deeper reflection i think there might be several ways of going about this. Either directly, with K+ irons in a basic anolyte and a copper catalyst, or by the electrolytic ozone production route reacting ammonia with ozone to form ammonium nitrate. A third set of possibilities involves setting up a fermentation of ammonia to ammonium, potassium or calcium nitrate, using either a bed of soil/compost or perhaps an aqueous fermenter using an aquarium, a pump and a trickle filter, followed by electrolytic separation of nitric acid.

[@Pyrokartoffel]

Can i use potassium Carbonate instaed of Copper Carbonate?

[@TreHazenF]

I think no, sorry. You need to form the copper tetraamine complex because it acts like a catalyst in this reaction.

[@lucas_lab]

@Heisekartoffel 07 it won't form the ammonia complex with potassium carbonate so no

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

use copper hydroxide or oxide not copper carbonate

[@Pyrokartoffel]

Thanks, makes sense I will try it with oxide

[@WabuhWabuh]

can you post what type of nitrate...in your title...

[@Jonodrew1286]

👌🙏👍Good proof of concept but time consuming - KSO4 + Ca(No3)2 is messy but much easier more or less - the resultant gypsum can be washed a few times - (pain in the ass) but kilned and used with Al and flour of Sand for the extraction of large chunks of pure silicon 👌👌

[@bigjay875]

Can't you buy KNa at the hardware store as a stump remover product or am I thinking about something else?

[@bigjay875]

The stump remover is what I use when I make my farmer flash powder

[@bigjay875]

The stump remover is what I use when I make my farmer flash powder

[@ScrapScience]

Nope, potassium nitrate stump remover is not available in most countries (as far as I know, it's only sold in the USA and maybe Canada, though there are probably some others). Nitrates of any kind are not an over-the-counter product where I live.

[@bigjay875]

@@ScrapScience I'm sorry to hear that I had a blast withe stuff when I was a kid I wish I could help you out but don't want to get you in trouble

[@bigjay875]

@@ScrapScience say any idea on a good power source to do electrolysis

[@ГориславЭль-Норман]

plz make ammonia by electrolysis of molten KOH with Fe3O4 and barbotation nitrogen in this hellish liquid

[@patrickbowen9395]

Would you be able to use copper sulfate as well?

[@ScrapScience]

Yep, the sulfate ions shouldn't interfere here.

[@WhyTheFace_NZ]

Pot Ash Nitrate?

[@markshort9098]

Cool experiment.. i get kno3 in 25kg bags for about 40 buck from farm supplies but it might get you on a watch list, especially if you buy 3 bags like i did lol

[@BackYardScience2000]

If you buy it directly from a farm supply store then it would be up to the employees/owner to report you. So if you know them and can talk them out of doin that then you should be fine. Or, you could work there yourself and get it even cheaper! 😃

[@ThePeterDislikeShow]

Can you do a video on mixing ammonia and bleach?

[@PotionsMaster666]

This is not the channel m8

[@BackYardScience2000]

It makes chloramine gas. There, no need to make a video on it. Simple.

[@dennisford2000]

How much cuco3 ? Maybe smelt it?

[@melody3741]

Now this is neat, and it would definitely be a fun experiment to do on smaller scales, but is this really something that's actually necessary? You can already buy nitrates online and it's not that expensive, and so if you're not doing this to save money, then anything other than its experimental value for doing it on a small scale would literally just be because you needed large quantities of it, like what is the point? Honestly I think nitrates should stay regulated I really don't think that you guys should be attempting to make this work in gigantic volumes.

[@f4grx]

@Edward Elizabeth Hitler also rest of europe. nobody wants to end up on lists...

[@FlaskFlash168]

can you use NaOH?

[@ScrapScience]

If you want sodium nitrate, yes. However, the final product will be much harder to crystallise out.

[@FlaskFlash168]

@@ScrapScience like it wouldn't crystallize like how ur video is you would need to cool it more?

[@ScrapScience]

Sodium nitrate is much more soluble than potassium nitrate, so you'll need to make a lot more of it in order for it to crystallise out effectively on cooling.

[@FlaskFlash168]

​@ScrapScience also I've seen alot of people put the other container directly into the setup can't we just have 2 beakers with like some cloth or filter paper?

[@timothyknoefler9198]

Nice! 👍

[@nattsurfaren]

I hoped for a burn test.

[@WeebRemover4500]

we dont have the funds for that just yet.

[@MichaelWiberg-nh5cd]

Exelnt show very important research should be made to dial data in but I liked your show.

[@barriehemming1189]

very good

[@slymythos]

This is very exciting! I would like to modify this to generate Aluminum nitrate.

[@whyindeed9937]

NOX emissions are an issue for vehicle emissions. Can we just make the stuff from air with high pressure and temperature?

[@ScrapScience]

Yes, with high enough temperatures, NO and NO2 are generated from nothing but atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen. The temperatures required for this are extreme however, and can only generally be achieved in the plasma generated by combustion or by electrical discharge. Even then, the amounts of NOx generated are very minor, making the process extremely energy intensive. If you're interested in the process of converting air to NOx compounds, I'd recommend looking up something called the 'Birkeland-Eyde reactor'. This uses electrical discharge from a high voltage spark gap to generate reasonable quantities of NO2. I'll be building one myself at some point.

[@whyindeed9937]

@@ScrapScience That's what I've been looking at. I'm wondering if there are ways of generating greater volumes of plasma. Apart from just using higher and higher voltages. Could I use some sort of magnetic confinement to increase the reaction surface between the plasma and air?

[@whyindeed9937]

@@ScrapScience What about using an H2O Torch? Run a small aquarium pump into the reaction chamber, to provide the excess Nitrogen/Oxygen. The H2O products should boil off into steam. The heat from the plasma should react the excess into NOX? If were increasing the surface area of the plasma, are we getting an efficiency increase over the traditional Birkeland-Eyde process?

[@whyindeed9937]

@@ScrapScience I don't suppose you have use for a 24V / 48V Power supply? I just rescued 100 or torroid's from the scrap yard. All 300VA 10 Amp secondary's.

[@Preyhawk81]

@@whyindeed9937 Schönherr Stove or Schoenherr written. It was an long pipe with elektrode on bottom and one on tope and air pressed inside from the bottom. with 5,5% effezienzy. Haber (from Haber Bosch reaktion) Wrote that you cant get more than 10% effizienzy with elektric arc. in his lab he reached 7,2% and i think it was only so high because small arc with less watts so there wassnt so much cooling problem. He himself wrote if the pipe where out from metall or an good heatconducter the effizienc would be higher but i dont know how he wanted to prevent an short cut.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Yup you can do this with other stuff too for example turning chloride to perchlorate. Turns amine to nitrious to nitrite to nitrate. On the other electrode you can reduce the chemicals for example turning nitromethane to methylamine 🤓

[@shreenablamichhane]

Can i use sodium hydroxide?

[@ScrapScience]

Yep, but then you'll end up making sodium nitrate, which is considerably more difficult to crystallise out of solution. Using the potassium salt is only beneficial for the crystallisation stage at the end, the rest of the process will work with sodium just fine.

[@shreenablamichhane]

I have limited material so, could you help me how to get better yield through sodium hydroxide!!🤝🏻

[@darianballard2074]

Cool video by the way 😀

[@hrajabi7261]

It was a complex cell...😅 It is better if you give your own explanation for chemistry of it... To give an idea about it... Even if the knowledge is not complete... but it was an Interesting video👍... I was thinking about making nitrate from ammonia, since your "nitric acid from nitrates" video... In the video, it seemed that the nitrates turns into ammonia at cathode , I thought maybe the reverse is also possible🙌

[@Jkauppa]

KNO3 + H2SO4 -> HNO3 + K2SO4

[@darianballard2074]

You should check this out link below

[@darianballard2074]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/q5a8p5aYnJtssMk

[@darianballard2074]

This was how I did it.

[@geniusdude8975]

Cool

[@karolus28]

cool

[@Preyhawk81]

Interesting experiment would be elektrolysis of water with kompressed air inside. I ve read they done it with an platine anode and under 50 to 100 bar pressure it forms ammoniumnitrate. To bad that an cell with this pressure is hard to make :(

[@nicoschadjidemetriou4373]

Loss of time my dear .The time we lose never come back.

[@bearcatben4762]

come on I just got an ozone generator

[@eyerusalemlemmatekleyohane782]

Check out extraction and ires video

[@Taahmim]

nitrifing bacteria will loss their job.

[@jadentonkin466]

What a scam