potassium from salt alternative

[Halash]

i was wondering if i could get potassium from electolysis of salt alternative. i can't mix it with water, because as the potassium gets separated, it will simultaniously react with water. is there anyway i can get it without the use of water??? could i use some other liquid to disolve the potassium chloride in?? like an alcohol or an oil???

 

is there any other way i can get potassium without going through the hassle of ordering it??????????????

[budullewraagh]

dont try it. first you have to isolate the KCl. i suggest playing around with fractional crystallization. unless you want to try pyridine as a solvent (which you really wont be able to do) you'll have to fuse the solid, then electrolyze it. use inert gases. it wont work well at all, plus you'll have chlorine gas coming out. oh, and you'll have to catch the molten K as it comes out and quickly throw it into a container of motor oil

[jdurg]

That won't work either bud. Potassium is VERY soluble in molten KCl so you won't be able to get it out of there unless you heat the molten salt up above the boiling point of potassium. Then you can distill the molten potassium/KCl mixture and collect the potassium vapor and condense it back into a liquid, then solidify it.

[Halash]

any other ways of gettin K?

[budullewraagh]

jdurg, if you do the reaction to completion, you won't have to worry about the solubility of K in molten KCl

[jdurg]

But you can never completely electrolyze a molten salt. You'll get to a point where your electrolysis products will have to come in contact, and you DEFINITELY don't want that happening.

[woelen]

any other ways of gettin K?

You don't want to have potassium at your house. It simply is too extreme to play with. It also is a REAL pain to store, unless you have it in a totally sealed glass tube. I was offered approximately 500 grams of (old) potassium a few weeks ago, but I did not take it, simply because I'm afraid to have that stuff around. It may be interesting as a sample for a collection of elements, but having it around is a fire hazard and cutting the metal into smaller pieces can be really dangerous, if the sample is somewhat older (peroxide layers). A friend of mine had 25 grams of severely oxidized/peroxidized potassium, but he has thrown it away in a river to get rid of it.

[olmpiad]

Do an electrolysis of potash (potassium carbonate) that has been moistened just enough to let it be electrolysized.

[jdurg]

That will 100% definitely NOT get you any potassium. ANYTHING with water in it will not form potassium for you. Electrolysis of moistened potassium carbonate will simply not work.