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making potassium (per) chlorate


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Posted

I have created a chlorate cell and am creating NaClO3, which I will convert to KClO3.

 

I am using 2 lead electrodes the anode has a layer of PbO on it, and I am wondering if that will work. In all of my readings I have seen PbO2 used but never PbO.

  • Like 1
Posted

Boiling the solution at the hypochlorite stage to convert it to chlorate... or boiling the solution if the cell has been running enough to make chlorate to convert any residual hypochlorite to chlorate before isolation... is common in any professional method. Its not stupid. Its smart.

 

Using bleach conversion instead of electrolysis because they don't have the knowledge to maintain a cell... is probably a good idea for them too... other wise there might be more Cl2 related kewl deaths.... Relatively speaking of course.

 

All that ACB bull is just people writing down stuff they heard from other people at keggers... criticize the intended use, lack of safety, "book", etc... don't criticize the chemistry behind it.

Posted
I know the boiling/cooling method is from a questionable source, but...would it work if you only wanted a very small amount of KCLO3 (say, for crossette breakers)? Edit: I take the as a yes^^^
Posted
I have created a chlorate cell and am creating NaClO3, which I will convert to KClO3.

 

I am using 2 lead electrodes the anode has a layer of PbO on it, and I am wondering if that will work. In all of my readings I have seen PbO2 used but never PbO.

IIRC PbO isn't even conductive. If your cell conducts that can mean only several things:

1) Your PbO isnt really PbO(is it yellow)?

2) Your PbO is just too flaky and it is just hanging there while the lead does all the work.

 

I have seen somewhere that it will be possible to make chlorate with lead anodes' however this method isnt very pleasent because after the process is over you will be left with quite a lot toxic mess. (Lead wont withstand the harsh conditions in the cell)

 

PS asilentbob i didnt mean that it is a stupid method overall, I also boil down my solutions after the electrolisys in order to kill all the hypochlorite and convert it to chlorate, however to go and buy a gallon of bleach, boil it down to 1/5 of its volume (I guess it will take about 2 hours and stink the whole neighbourhood) in order to get about 20-40 grams of chorate IS stupid.

  • Like 1
Posted
I spoke too soon, it was yellow but it turned black and started conducting much better after about thirty minutes.
Posted

probably oxidized to PbO2' however, the coating was probably just not consistant.

 

How is the electrolizing going? (as a matter of fact i dont believe it will lead to anything good)

Posted

I am getting a white precipitate in the bottom of the cell, I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not....

 

Currently (pun intended) I am using 6V at 80amps, makes alot of beeg beeg bubbles when I use Al foil to make H2 gas, and alot of small bubbles in my chlorate cell.

Posted
I'm getting nervous just reading this thread.
  • Like 1
Posted
I'm getting excited just reading this thread. Perc won't be around for purchase much longer, and I sure as hell want to be able to make it if necessary. As dangerous or hard as it might be, it's definitely do-able.
Posted
Why bother, people here on APC will help you at no cost ;)
Posted
:D he he i guess your right , did you see how much chlorate is selling for ? a handy profit$$
Posted

I’ve just set up a pretty simple chlorate cell, now what I want to know is whether both the cathode and anode are too bubble(I always thought it was just the anode).

 

I’m using graphite rods and a computer power supply, I changed what colour wire the + - was attached to till I found one where the anode bubbles the most but the cathode still bubble a bit.

Posted
Well, that is what is happening to my cell whenever i run it, so i think thats ok, it happened on a video of a guy making a chlorate cell on eBay.(trial video).
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
It would seem this process is hard to do wrong,http://www.instructables.com/id/EGXGY5PF23Z375E/ would this work at all, i want to do (sort of) the same thing but use tungsten electrodes, a car battery charger as the power source and potassium chloride as the starting point, any thing else i should know?
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
Don't hold me to this but I think that the tungsten will corrode if used as an anode. If you already have some then go ahead and try it, but I have never heard of it as being used for this.
  • 1 month later...
Posted
You are probably going to hate me for resurecting this thread but I think this would be a really fun project for me. My first questions are: how do you make the anode with platinum wire? and where do you get sodium chlorate? Is it still used as herbacide?
  • Like 2
Posted

I think your a little confused... hehe

It's not Sodium Chlorate it's Sodium Chloride...

 

Potassium Perchlorate

----------------------

NaCl -> NaClO3

NaClO3 + KCl -> KClO4

 

Potassium Chlorate

----------------------

KCl -> KClO3

 

 

Sodium Chloride is common salt... I'm not sure if road salt is pure, but it's probably the cheapest source...

 

I believe Potassium Chloride is what is used as a water softener... Or it is known as "potash"... Not really sure

 

Sodium Chlorate is a decent oxidizer already... And your right, it is a herbicide

Posted
I think your a little confused... hehe

It's not Sodium Chlorate it's Sodium Chloride...

 

Potassium Perchlorate

----------------------

NaCl -> NaClO3

NaClO3 + KCl -> KClO4

 

Potassium Chlorate

----------------------

KCl -> KClO3

 

 

Sodium Chloride is common salt... I'm not sure if road salt is pure, but it's probably the cheapest source...

 

I believe Potassium Chloride is what is used as a water softener... Or it is known as "potash"... Not really sure

KCl is water softner and it is extremely cheap. I saw it at the supermarket for superlow prices. I didn't know that sodium chlorate waseasily produced from salt so I thought you had to get that first. I'm in my preliminary research for this chem expiriment and am very excited for it. But I still have my question from before. How do you make the anode from wire? Do you just coil it around a tube? I've seen pictures but am not really sure what they did.

Posted
Just coil the wire and place it in the solution.
Posted

Alan Yates coiled it around a glass tube... I suppose you could just coil it and put it in the solution through the lid though... It would probably have more surface area...

 

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2189/306258316arm3.jpg

  • Like 1
Posted
I think your a little confused... hehe

It's not Sodium Chlorate it's Sodium Chloride...

 

Potassium Perchlorate

----------------------

NaCl -> NaClO3

NaClO3 + KCl -> KClO4

 

Potassium Chlorate

----------------------

KCl -> KClO3

 

 

Sodium Chloride is common salt... I'm not sure if road salt is pure, but it's probably the cheapest source...

 

I believe Potassium Chloride is what is used as a water softener... Or it is known as "potash"... Not really sure

 

Sodium Chlorate is a decent oxidizer already... And your right, it is a herbicide

What drugs did you use today?

NaClO3+KCl = KClO4??????:? WTF??

 

NaClO3 ->electrolisys at certain conditions -> NaClO4

 

NaClO4 + KCl = KClO4 + NaCl

 

and potash is potassium carbonate not the chloride, the chloride is what is called low sodium salt.

  • Like 2
Posted

I'm confident with the whole procedure (at least the chloride to chlorate side of things) but how do you remove or destroy sodium chloride? (assuming you use NaCl as the starting salt).

 

With my potassium chlorate i made i couldn't let the chloride level drop to low or the graphite anode would erode very quickly thus when i did the double decomposition with KCl the yielded KClO3 was heavily contaminated with NaCl pretty much making it useless. I havent seen anything about this (or i mentally skipped it), any ideas?

 

btw, has anyone had any luck getting a commercial TSLD or GSLD anode? I did send off a email to a place in the UK asking for prices for about 10 anodes but i never heard back.

 

Cheers

Posted

Many recrystalisations would make a pretyy clean K-Chlorate.

However if you are not after perchlorate then the best way is to make the Chlorate out of KCl.

If you want to make some perchlorate then you have two choises. Either make the direct perchlorate from chloride using PbO2 otr get pure chlorate(very very very low chloride) and then use platinum.

You can get pretty pure Na-Chlorate form K-Chlorate(using many crystalizations) by this way : 2KClO3 + Na2SO4 = K2SO4 + 2NaClO3 at hot temperatures and then add some EtOH to precipitate the K-sulfate, if anyone is interested i can put here the whole process.

  • Like 1
Posted
So let me get this straight. To make potassium perchlorate I would start with sodium chloride change it to sodium chlorate and then the sodium perchlorate and then add potassium chloride and end up with potassium perchlorate.
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