saltflat Posted June 12, 2017 Posted June 12, 2017 Well everything went great until I was adding the water. I added cold water instead of hot and I added to much water. Is the batch ruined or is there a way to salvage it?
lloyd Posted June 12, 2017 Posted June 12, 2017 The normal 'cure' is to add more dry powder to the over-wet batch. Lloyd
saltflat Posted June 13, 2017 Author Posted June 13, 2017 does it matter that I added cold instead of hot water?
Merlin Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 I don't think the water temperature is critical. I usually use room temp. A Chem reaction rate increases with temp but you are only wetting to granulate. It takes practice to not over wet. Add small increments of water and work the comp very well. When it clumps together and holds the shape sort of like play dough it's wet enough. You will pass wet enough and be over wet in a blink. So be careful. Like Lloyd said add more dry comp if you have it. It's always best to hold back a little dry comp in case od over wetting. If you don't have any you will have to mill some more. All else fails you can let it dry for a while and re-granulate. You will need to mix it at intervals to determine when it is dry and keep everything mixed. If it is so wet water runs out during drying you will likely lose nitrate and it will not be as good as it should.Least this is my opinion someone will correct if I am wrong.
MadMat Posted June 13, 2017 Posted June 13, 2017 Unless you are doing the CIA method, it is my understanding that you should use cold water. You don't want to dissolve the KNO3 or dissolve as little of it as possible. Adding 20% alcohol to the water is also a good idea because it serves two purposes; 1 it lowers the surface tension of the water, allowing it to "wet" the powder easier with less water. 2. It significantly reduces the solubility of KNO3. The biggest problem you may incur from too much water is dissolving the KNO3 and then as the excess water evaporates, the KNO3 will recrystallize, and the slower the water evaporates the larger these crystals will be. Large crystals nof KNO3 will effectively negate all your ball milling. So, if your powder burns slowly after drying, you may have to run it through the ball mill again.
Recommended Posts