Potassium Salts/ conversion

[YT2095]

have a Sodium salt or higher that you wish to displace with potassium? it`s easy

 

if you smoke or know people that smoke, get them to colect their ashes in a jar (I do) BBQ ash is just as good!

when you`ve collected enough add boiling water to it, just enough to cover it by about an inch, then stir it well, let it settle.

filter through coffee filter paper into a clean vessel.

reduce it volume by evaporation, on a heater, in the sunshine etc...

now you have a salt that you want to be a potassium salt... example Sodium Chlorate.

simple, mix your "ash liquid" into the Sodium Chlorate soln (saturated) and then wait until your potassium Chlorate crystals drop out of soln

you`ll need to look up the soluabilities of other potassium slats to work out calcs for fractional crystalisation, (so just PM or look it up on google).

it`s good also for liberating the Ammonium complexes in compounds too

ammonium nitrate + your ash liquid will give Ammonium hydroxide and Potassium nitrate

the ash liquid minus impurities is; potassium carbonate and potassium hydroxide (so don`t get it on your hands or face!)

 

it also makes good Tomato and Chili plant food

[blike]

I believe my dad does something like that for his plants, I'm not sure what it is, but its some sort of home chemistry concoction to get potassium

[YT2095]

well you do get a double "Whammy" when you mix it with ammonium nitrate

you get yer potassuim nitrate (plants like tomatoes love both nitrogen and potassium) then you also get Ammonium carbonate, again your nitrogen and soil based carbon dioxide

it`s a killer fuel for tomatoes or Chilis

they love it

[huahe]

Hey guuys,

 

I got two questions to ask:

 

1. Can I replace ashes of BBQ wth ashes of paper?

 

2. I got a bag of chalk given by some relative a few years ago and I see no use of it. Can someone teach me how to convert it ino fertilizer for chili and potato plants?

[YT2095]

well when you say "chalk" do you mean REAL chalk as in Calcium carbonate and or Sulphate or Lime? (Calcium hydroxide known sometimes known as Slaked Lime)?

 

if it`s "Chalk" (real) then that will be great for Brasiccas (cabbage , sprouts, sping greens etc..) even some legumes like runner beans will benefit from a little lime

it would be a total watse of time unless done a small scale to make a potassium salt from your bag of chalk however... you COULD do it! but it wouldn`t really be worth the effort.

keep chalk or lime well AWAY from potatoes, they don`t like it! they much prefer an acidic soil that`s high in trace elements and Phosphorous.

yes paper would make potash but also alot of other chems too due to the treatment process it goes through to make it, you`de be much better employed burning a peice of ordinary wood to ash

 

hope that helps a little

[huahe]

Thanks a lot YT!

 

The chalk I mean is real CHALK, which is use to write on blackboard one.

 

So do you mean I just have to crush the chalk into powder and spray them into the soil?

 

I wonder if that will make good food for my tomato plants.

 

Anyway, thanks for your introduction.

[YT2095]

Tomatoes wont like chalk, their similar in nutrient needs to Chilis, in fact I use tomato liquid feed on my chilis

but cabbages and sprouts will love it

[wolfson]

A little adavanced chemistry test:

See if you can calculate the Molarity of the KOH (potassium hydroxide) and find the concentration of hydrogen ion's in the complex. Remember that KOH is a base so use the water constant Kw in the equation to represent the H+ concentration.

HINT: Molarity (concentration) = n (moles) * Volume (l)