KCl
PhAINTo
I wondred if someone could help me out.
A while ago someone told me to mix sulfur and KCl to make an explosive. I
don't know if this is possible, he probably meant potassium chlorate.
greets Phainto
tai fu
news:3d5c21c4$0$183$ba62...@news.skynet.be:
A good way to kill yourself if you are inexperienced is to mix chlorate
and sulphur... and I only know of few that does this, and thats on the
tip of a strike anywhere match, corrosive rifle primers (found mostly in
eastern europe...) and armstrong mixture. All these are in very small
quantities and manufactured by professional factories and even then
accidents does happen. If you want to attempt pyro start with a
fountain... mix potassium nitrate and sulphur and charcoal in varying
degrees (start with 75 10 15) and press them into a rigid cardboard
tube, plug bottom first with kitty litter rammed into the tube... inset
fuse on top of the tube and stand them outside, light and run and you
have made yourself a fountain. Mix some titanium powders into it and
make nice spark effect.
--
email: rahi...@mail.utexan.edu
replace n with s to reply.
Eirik van der Meer
> Hi there,
He was wrong, KCl won't make anything explosive. And to mix potassium
clorate with sulfur is not something you want to do if you value your life.
--
Eirik M
Tiden dreper alt
Colin Bradley
of KClO3 and KClO4....but not an explosive
Colin
"PhAINTo" <PhA...@mail.portland.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3d5c21c4$0$183$ba62...@news.skynet.be...
PhAINTo
about it on the net
I was just wondring about the KCl
"Eirik van der Meer" <ful...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:Xns926C30ACF5Dful...@127.0.0.1...
Eirik van der Meer
news:3d5d1fa9$0$263$ba62...@news.skynet.be:
> I wasn't intending to mixing sulphur with potassium chlorate I read
> enough about it on the net
Good choice my friend.
> I was just wondring about the KCl
Not a chanse, my guess is he doesn't know jack and confused it with KClO3.
Rob Peacock
and for melting winter ice on your sidewalks. I doubt that by adding
sulfur to it that you will get anything remotely 'explosive'.
--->Rob
Jeff
> A while ago someone told me to mix sulfur and KCl to make an explosive. I
> don't know if this is possible, he probably meant potassium chlorate.
>
Your acquaintance might have been thinking of "yellow powder", or
"pulvis fulminans," made by melting a mixture of KNO3, potassium
carbonate, and sulphur. This is quite beyond the amateur, however, and
tends to explode while being melted.
Jeff
Eirik van der Meer
news:9ba48946.0208...@posting.google.com:
> Your acquaintance might have been thinking of "yellow powder", or
> "pulvis fulminans," made by melting a mixture of KNO3, potassium
> carbonate, and sulphur. This is quite beyond the amateur, however, and
> tends to explode while being melted.
Does anybody remember the reaction that takes place during the melting?
IIRC the carbonate reacted with the sulfur to form a very reactive fuel,
and if so it must be possible to melt the K2CO3 and S together, grind down
and mix with KNO3. This could solve some of the problems with the
composition and possibly open up new usages for it...
Jeff
> Does anybody remember the reaction that takes place during the melting?
> IIRC the carbonate reacted with the sulfur to form a very reactive fuel,
> and if so it must be possible to melt the K2CO3 and S together, grind down
> and mix with KNO3. This could solve some of the problems with the
> composition and possibly open up new usages for it...
No authoritative answers appeared when I googled the archives. Here is
a copy of one post that has some info.
Jeff
==========================================
>>Just seems odd to me thats all. Does anyone know WHY potassium
carbonate
>>is used here??
>
> I'm most likely horribly wrong, but I think that the K2CO3
>reacts with the sulphur to produce potassium polysulphides, etc
(along
>similar lines as the production of "liver of potash."). This
potassium
>polysulphide would then violently react with the KNO3 upon ignition.
>Oh well. Just a theory. Comments?
Well, it seems to me that you are horribly RIGHT, since, according to
a book
I have about "the chemistry of fireworks and blackpowder" (in danish),
this
is exactly what happens. They suggest the reaction:
2 K2CO3 + S8 --> K2S3 + K2S4 + 2 CO2 + SO2
And they also agree with you on the 'violently react with the KNO3
upon
ignition'-part.
As a bit of added history it states that 'yellow powder' was
originally made
with potassiumhydrogentartrate (KHC4H4O6) in stead of potash. The
result is
essentially the same, as this upon heating would produce... potash
after
the reaction
2 KHC4H4O6 --> K2CO3 + 5 H2O + 4 CO
Just my 2 cents worth of contribution to a newsgroup which, IMHO, is
nothing
short of excellent.
Keep up the good work
Martin Worm-Leonhard
Jeff
> IIRC the carbonate reacted with the sulfur to form a very reactive fuel,
> and if so it must be possible to melt the K2CO3 and S together, grind down
> and mix with KNO3. This could solve some of the problems with the
> composition and possibly open up new usages for it...
Found it. It was Mike Swisher, of course, who posted the answer. Yes,
you should be able to do away with ALL of the melting operations &
just combine potassium polysulphide with KNO3.
Jeff
======================================================
See Davis's "Pulvis fulminans," Chymia II, 1949 (reprinted in Warren
Klofkorn's
"The Essential Tenney L. Davis," pp. 169-180).
The potassium carbonate and sulphur combine when the mixture is fused
to form
potassium polysulphide (liver of sulphur, K2Sx). This subsequently
combines
explosively with the saltpetre when the proper temperature is reached.
The
chemist Baume showed that a fulminating powder equal to the customary
mixture of
saltpetre, potassium carbonate, and sulphur could be made from 2 parts
saltpetre and 1 part liver of sulphur.
A differential thermal analyss of pulvis fulminans would be an
interesting thing
to see.
Richard Ogden
news:9ba48946.02082...@posting.google.com...
>
> Found it. It was Mike Swisher, of course, who posted the answer. Yes,
> you should be able to do away with ALL of the melting operations &
> just combine potassium polysulphide with KNO3.
>
> Jeff
If you try this, please keep us informed of the results.
-Rich
Mike Swisher
"[i]f niter is mixed with ordinary liver of sulfur, a similar fulminating powder
is produced, the effects of which are equally terrible." See T.L. Davis, "Pulvis
fulminans," in CHYMIA, 1949. The article is reprinted in "The Essential Tenney
L. Davis," compiled by Warren Klofkorn, and currently available from Prometheus
Publication.
In article <3Xu89.48$kx1....@news1.atlantic.net>, "Richard says...
Richard Ogden
liver of sulfur with saltpeter, vs. melting the whole together? It seems
obvious, but I may be missing something essential...
-Rich
"Mike Swisher" <Mike_...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:aju9c...@drn.newsguy.com...
Andrew de Halas
> Hmmm.... Let's see, common uses of KCl are salt subsitute in cooking,
> and for melting winter ice on your sidewalks. I doubt that by adding
> sulfur to it that you will get anything remotely 'explosive'.
>
> --->Rob
>
Jeff
> > you should be able to do away with ALL of the melting operations &
> > just combine potassium polysulphide with KNO3.
> >
> > Jeff
>
> If you try this, please keep us informed of the results.
>
> -Rich
Not me, fella. Eirick the Red (err, van der Meer) was the interested
one. I just did the googling.
Jeff
Mike Swisher
spontaneous combustion, shock, or friction, as long as they are stored dry and
at room temperature.
Both potassium carbonate and liver of sulphur are hygroscopic and could draw
water in storage, but even this might not be a problem considering the mode of
use.
Both types of composition function by heating until melted and when they reach a
certain temperature, react violently. I am not sure what the exact chemistry of
the polysulphide/nitrate melt is but it is clearly at this molten stage that the
behavior of these compositions is somewhat unpredictable and thus dangerous.
An article entitled "Speculation on the Explosive Decomposition of 'Yellow
Powder'" by Foreman, Ittenbach, and Swartzendruber in Issue 14 of the Journal of
Pyrotechnics may be of some interest to you. Most of the article was cribbed
from the Davis article I mentioned previously, the authors citing Davis's
primary sources as if they had researched them on their own, and making no
acknowledgment of Davis.
The original part of their article was a speculation that the "nitrous sulphur"
mentioned by Baumé in his explanation of the phenomenon was in fact a nitrogen
sulphide, or sulphur nitride, of some sort, formed in the melt. They offer
proposed equations along these lines.
My objection to this line of thinking is that they have done no empirical study
of partial melts to determine if these intermediates actually exist, and they
also misinterpret Baumé's understanding of "nitrous" in the modern sense. The
"vivifying nitro-ærial spirit" of Sendivogian chemical theory was in fact
oxygen, not nitrogen. Sendivogius knew that saltpetre was composed of three
different components and identifed the respective properties of each. The
English physician Mayow understood already in the seventeenth century that the
reason blood circulated through the lungs, as demonstrated by Harvey, was to
become re-charged with this "nitrous spirit," i.e., what we now call oxygen.
Such would still have been the way this terminology was understood in Baumé's
period (1766).
There is an interesting book by Zbigniew Szydlow called "Water Which Does Not
Wet Hands" about Sendivogius's discovery of what we now call oxygen. Cornelius
Drebbel, who also figures in the pulvis fulminans story, knew how to generate
oxygen. In 1621 he demonstrated a submarine before King James I and his court.
It made a 3-hour trip below the waters of the Thames, powered by 12 rowers; when
the air grew stale, Drebbel refreshed it by opening a bottle. It is evident that
oxygen was known (though not under that name) long before Lavoisier's time, just
as North America was known to some Europeans long before Columbus.
In article <Dsy89.55$kx1....@news1.atlantic.net>, "Richard says...
Richard Ogden
your selected posts.
-Rich
"Mike Swisher" <Mike_...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:ak0fs...@drn.newsguy.com...
Laurie
> Cornelius Drebbel, who also figures in the pulvis fulminans story, knew
> how to generate oxygen. In 1621 he demonstrated a submarine before
> King James I and his court. It made a 3-hour trip below the waters
> of the Thames, powered by 12 rowers; when the air grew stale,
> Drebbel refreshed it by opening a bottle.
"In fact large, highly trained aerobic athletes can have a VO2max in
excess of 6 liters/minute."
http://www.nismat.org/physcor/max_o2.html
So 12*3*60*6 = 12,960 liters of O2; that was some bottle!!<G>
Laurie
_____
Get my diet articles: http://www.ecologos.org/articles.htm
news:alt.food.vegan.science Scientifically credible info on veg*n diets.
Newsgroups: change "bitch" to "beach" for legit e-mail.
Mike Swisher
Dickenson, to have been a gas generator like a "Woulfe's bottle" and not simply
a bottle containing oxygen at atmospheric pressure. If it had been just the
latter it would clearly not have been able to supply the demands of the rowers.
Whatever Drebbel used, his submarine voyage is well documented in contemporary
accounts, and is one of those interesting pieces of forgotten history that
occasionally is brought to light.
In article <um81rsl...@corp.supernews.com>, "Laurie" says...
Laurie
> ... a gas generator like a "Woulfe's bottle" ...
Seems this apparatus was designed for bubbling gas through a liquid, not
generating gas.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mwoulfe/clarewou.htm
Say a process similar to modern oxygen-generating canisters using NaClO3
was used.
Unless my brain has atrophied since I last sat in a chem class, that
would require ~90 pounds of NaClO3, and some way of heating it, which would
probably require an oxygen-consuming flame; thus, increasing the amount of
NaClO3 needed. Still, quite a feat in a tin can, underwater.
Mike Swisher
thistle tube is used) is inserted going down to the bottom of the flask (for
pouring a liquid into it, like hydrogen peroxide) and onto its solid contents
(like pyrolusite); through the other is a vent tube for the gas generated. It is
usually from this vent tube that the gas generated is bubbled under water into a
water-filled collecting jar, from which the gas gradually displaces the water.
The gas does not need to be bubbled through the water, but can be used directly
from the vent if needed. There is a good illustration of this apparatus on one
of the plates of Lavoisier's Traité elementaire de chimie. To my knowledge it is
still standard laboratory equipment.
Please understand I do not intend to use space here to defend Dr. Szydlo's
reportage, or the original accounts he reprints of the Honble Robert Boyle,
F.R.S., and others who witnessed or later made note of Drebbel's submarine trip.
The fact remains that it did take place and the further specifics of Drebbel's
purported oxygen-generating method are not recorded. It was, after all, a
military secret!
You will have to read the books in question to satisfy yourself about your
questions, and not engage in disputation with me about them - I simply make note
that they are available, and may be of interest to the curious. OK?
In article <uma8g07...@corp.supernews.com>, "Laurie" says...