Urea purification

[Libi]

Hi!

I have accidentally spilled a few milliliters of an acid mixture (Nitric and  hydrochloric) into a bottle with commercial Urea beads. How can I can get back the purified Urea? Is there a suitable solvent to use for recrystallization? Or is there another method to do it?

Thank you in advance! 

[chenbeier]

The expenditure is to much. Throw it a way and buy new one. The acid will decompose the urea anyway  to ammonium, nitrogen oxides and carbondioxide.

[Libi]

So there is no way to purify the urea? I understand that it is better to buy new one but still, it is interesting to know if there is a solution.

Thanks

[chenbeier]

The urea is more or less decomposed by the acid, there is nothing to purify.

[Libi]

OK thank you

[gatewood]

On 6/13/2021 at 4:12 AM, chenbeier said:

The urea is more or less decomposed by the acid, there is nothing to purify.

It might depend, try to see the precise amount of aqua regia (nitric+hydrochloric acid) you spilled onto how many beads. If the ratio favors the beads, you probably have a mixture of urea and whatever product(s) resulted from the reaction.

Depending on how pure you need your urea and if the mass ratio heavily favors the urea, you could probably still do without separating it. If you need to / insist on separating the urea, it miiight be possible to separate using regular/fractional distillation. Investigate and do some balancing equations, to see what products you got from the reaction, to know boiling and volatilization points (see if you get any azeotropes).

Finally, do be careful, however, of the possible presence of urea nitrate, as it is explosive (though, if its there, you probably have too little of the compound, but still):

https://europepmc.org/article/med/19575193

Edited June 15, 2021 by gatewood