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First of all, proper sentence structure and capitalization will get you far in life. A better question would have been, "Is it possible to make KNO3 from urea or NH4NO3, and how would I go about doing this?" People tend to assume you're a 14 year old kid who wants to make big explosions in your backyard if you ask about things like KNO3 the way you did.

 

Urea could be made into nitrates by using it as food for nitrobacter bacteria or by decomposing it into ammonia and leading it through heated catalyst tubes with just the right proportion of oxygen to convert it to nitrogen oxides, which are absorbed in water, forming nitric acid, and then neutralized to nitrates. Then again, I dont know of anyone who can do that on a hobby scale.

 

I certainly hope you don't have NH4O4. I've never even heard of such a compound. It's probably really dangerous. :rolleyes:

 

No, what you have is NH4NO3. ammonium nitrate. Boil with a stoichiometric amount of potassium carbonate or potassium hydroxide until ammonia stops coming off, concentrate and chill the solution, disturbing it as little as possible. Long, needle-like crystals of KNO3 deposit, which can be filtered from the solution, rinsed with ice cold water, and dried. If you shake it up or move the beaker too much, you get lots of extremely fine crystals which trap the solution between them, dissolve rapidly when you try to wash them, and take eternity to dry out.

 

Why do you need KNO3 so urgently? If this has anything at all to do with the anarchist's cookbook, please delete or throw out your copy right now. It is garbage and you will hurt yourself. Pick up an inorganic chemistry textbook at the library. Learn it. Bonding, Ions, stoichiometry, double displacement/metathesis reactions, redox chemistry (this one is absolutely vital but you won't understand without the other material). The only way you will be able to make any kind of pyrotechnics properly and responsibly is if you understand what exactly is happening.

 

I'm sorry if I've gone on a tirade there for no reason, since I have no idea why you want potassium nitrate anyway. Have fun making it if you do. Cheers :)

Edited by UC
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