Dirt to KNO3

[poisonkiller]

Has anyone tried to make KNO3 from dirt, because it seems to be a easy way to get KNO3? If someone don't know how it works, then here are instructions:

 

Take a bucket and make holes under it, then spread one piece of cloth over the holes inside the bucket and put wood ashes on it(about 5cm) and on top of that another level of cloth and at last fill the bucket with animal waste, decayed vegetables, old dirt or earth from old burial grounds. Under the bucket put a container. If it's done, start pouring hot water in the bucket(make sure water goes through ALL of the earth), don't pour too much or it will get stuck.(Now i'm gonna copy from I read that )Allow drained liquid to cool and settle for 1-2h and then carefully drain off liquid into heat resistant container. Boil mixture over hot fire for at least 2 hours. Small grains of salt will start to appear in the solution. Scoop these out as they form, using any type of improvised strainer(paper, etc.). When liquid has boiled down to approximately half its original volume, remove the fire and let sit. After half an hour add an equal volume of alcohol. When mixture is poured through paper, small white crystals will collect on top of it.

 

It seems to be quite interesting way to make KNO3, but i'm not sure if it's gonna work. I will try it when I get some free time... If anyone has tried to make KNO3 this way, then tell the results here.

[weknowpyro]

Well i started about a month ago trying to make KNO3 from dirt. I read abit of info and tried out an idea and got a long flower pot and filled it full of fresh wood ash's and dirt, obiously you want the soil to have an extremly high nitrate level. So the best thing i could find out about that contained alot of nitrogen is urea, i know i can buy this but i prefer not to spend the money.

So everyday i urinate on it(sounds disgusting but hey its science ) and then i stir the slurry around and tip out any excess liquid thats on top.

I do not know if this will attually work but the principle is there so hopefully by the summer time i should see some KNO3 crystallysing on top.

[pa_pyro]

Keep experimenting with this, in the future it might be needed... hopefully it won't come down to that.

[_Po_]

I tried it a few times with the soil from our chicken pen in an area where we usually throw the food scraps. Chicken crap and vegetable matter building up on the same patch of dirt for about 5 years. The pen is at the top of a gentle slope in our yard, and down from it the grass is much darker and greener and grows faster. You'd think it would be perfect for extracting KNO3.

 

Well I was about 11 and fresh into pyro/chem when I tried this, so I probably didn't do it very well. I only used about 4 litres of loose dirt. The liquid that came out was a brown/orange/yellow colour and smelt pretty bad. After I boiled it off I was left with a sticky brown mess that wouldn't dry easily. Thinking back now, the wet feeling it left on my fingers is the same as my real KNO3. When I finally got some of those goo dry I burnt a piece, it smouldered and sizzled like touch paper. There was definitely some KNO3 in it, but not much. It wasn't worth trying to purify the little KNO3 available in the soil.

 

I wouldn't mind trying it again now, though. I might start a nitre bed or "compost heap" (wink wink nudge nudge). It'd be pretty cool to know I could make KNO3 properly. Whether or not I'm successful is another thing.

 

This is from Wikipedia:

 

Historically, nitre-beds were prepared by mixing manure with either mortar or wood ashes, common earth and organic materials such as straw to give porosity to a compost pile typically 1.5 metres high by 2 metres wide by 5 metres long. The heap was usually under a cover from the rain, kept moist with urine, turned often to accelerate the decomposition and leached with water after approximately one year. The liquid containing various nitrates was then converted with wood ashes to potassium nitrates, crystallized and refined for use in gunpowder.

 

Sounds like you're on the right track, weknowpyro.

 

Pretty big heap of shit and piss and dirt and ash to have in my backyard...I wonder if they had it raised with a funnelling gutter type base to drain the liquid easily. Actually this sounds like too much work. I think I'll just keep a 25kg KNO3 sack buried in a safe in my backyard instead, hahaha.

[GlowinPontiac]

earth from old burial grounds.

i dont think people will like it too much if you dig up someones grave with the excuse that there loved one has turned into something you need to make fireworks.

[hst45]

LOL! "Yeah, grandma Ethel was really "into'' fireworks....we used her for tigertail, glitter, lift powder..."

[h0lx]

poisonkiller, you live in estonia, why the hell you keep messing with methods like this, if you can buy KNO3?

[Chemguy]

It's a project to ork on, if KNO3 is ever banned from sale or made very expensive, then it would be good to have a ton of shit and piss to make it from

[poisonkiller]

to holx: I can't buy KNO3 in Estonia! I have been messing with KNO3/NaNO3(this is what I can buy) and crystallizing it with KCl, but it never works! There are always too much KCl (I put equal amounts of both) and so little amount of KNO3. So if you have a better way or a place, where I can buy KNO3, then tell me!

[treelover]

This procedure for extracting KNO3 from the earth will work, but you'll need a lot of dirt for just a few grammes of KNO3. Making a nitre-bed from urine and manure will enlarge the KNO3-concentration per volume, but it'll take some time for reasonable quantities of KNO3 to form.

 

In short, it's not worth the effort at present times to extract KNO3 from natural resources. However, if sometime, for some reason, KNO3 becomes unavailable, the knowledge might come in handy.