Potassium Nitrate

[Guest Black Alpha]

Where can I get the chemical, potassium nitrate?

How expensive is it?

[Gilded]

Hmmh. I recall there being several potassium nitrate threads in the past, but I try to answer anyway. Relatively pure potassium nitrate is available at most gardening stores (it's sometimes called kalisaltpeter or similar too). If you don't mind minor impurities that's probably best. However, even pure KNO3 is relatively cheap at chemistry stores (I've seen price ranges of a 500g bag from £2.60 to even 9.80£, the latter one being a total ripoff though ).

[5614]

you know that potassium nitrate is KNO3... well here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6557&highlight=kno3

is a thread all about it!

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7024&highlight=kno3

(and another)

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6769&highlight=kno3

(and another!)

 

(and what to do with it:)

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6349&highlight=kno3

 

there are many threads in the 'chemistry' section about KNO3, those are some of the ones with KNO3 in the thread title.

 

as gilded said:- gardening shop, if not a chemical shop

[Gilded]

Potassium nitrate is certainly fun - you don't need s*** to make it (no wait, that's exactly what you need), and you can make black powder, rocket fuel or other fun stuff with it.

[budullewraagh]

i dont find nitrates to be particularly fun but hey, that's just me

[Gilded]

"i dont find nitrates to be particularly fun but hey, that's just me"

 

I must admit that nitrates aren't fun in the case you use them for something that has the potential of incapacitating you for life (or ending your life right away).

[YT2095]

many metal nitrates are quite stable (fortunately!).

 

no it`s not the material of choice if you want a life altering experience, but if that`s what you want, this isn`t the forum for you either )

[budullewraagh]

it's not the fact that they're good oxidizers. it's the fact that i prefer other oxidizers to them

[r1dermon]

there are other, superior, oxidisers. nitrates give a bland effect. they make decent rocket fuel...ammonium perchlorate is where the real potential is. why, might i ask, are you interested in obtaining KNO3?

[folder]

Ebay is a good source. Here's 6 pounds for $16 including shipping - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2567&item=3857109258&rd=1

I got some from this seller. Good stuff.

[budullewraagh]

r1dermon, everybody wants potassium nitrate at one time or another. most people want it because of some urge to make either nitric acid, black powder or smoke bombs

[r1dermon]

or they read totse.com "how to blow stuff up" and they thought it would be cool to attempt, so they figured "where else" and came here to ask where to purchase some of the stuff. naturally, since they are not interested in the science behind the reaction, they'd rather find the fastest cheapest way to acquire it to fill that urge to go out and blow stuff up. ahh, the feeling you get when you impress your friends with that gunpowder. except, most people wouldnt know to ball mill it, and as a result they would end up with a powder that would fizzle and make a lot of smoke...really impressive if i say so myself. then they will become enfatuated with trying to make KNO3 explode, so they will go back to totse and find more information, because again, they are not interested in the science of the reaction, they are interested in blowing things up. and with that, they discover perchlorates. ahh, so they log on with their dads credit card and order up a lb of potassium perchlorate, ammonium perchlorate...whatever...they say hey, what do they use in M80's, and then they go out and grab a big bag of aluminum powder...this is a really bad idea...but this is where headlines are made. they take the aluminum powder and a ratio that they have FOUND online, without doing any further research, and they make say 10 grams of explosive materials that will be set off by shock, static, or a googly eyed look from the wrong person. now they figure, ahh, my last stuff sucked, so this can't be that much more violent. they hold a match to it and BANG, no more fingers. ahh how impressive. and this is why we have scientists. thank you, i am done.

[budullewraagh]

natural selection

[Gilded]

If it was only the flash powder case... As mentioned many, many times, it's the TCAP, MEKP and other suicidal materials that make the rather sad headlines since sometimes in those cases the idiot isn't the only one who drops from the gene pool.

[Gilded]

Talking of stupid things related to getting yourself (nearly) killed...

 

http://www.darwinawards.com/slush/200407/pending20040731-054827.html

 

Phosphorous and iodine. In a film canister. In your front pocket. Ehhh.

[r1dermon]

i read a story somewhere of someone keeping a rocket motor in their pocket. like, a high power rocket motor. on the way to the launch site, he flicked a cigarette and some of the embers dropped through the nozzle, lighting it up, blowing half his skin off his side and burning down his car. ahh, the stupid things people do.

[YT2095]

there`s more Braindead Idiots out there than there are Chemical Combinations, and there`s Kazillions of those!

 

and since someone`s already mentioned totse, you`ll find a whole NEST of them there!

[Gilded]

"and since someone`s already mentioned totse, you`ll find a whole NEST of them there!"

 

It's better to keep the idiots in one place and the non-idiots in another place, eh?

[YT2095]

better to teach them the correct ways 1`st and let evolution sort those that think they know better!

 

I`ll turn no one away, but I have limits of patience!

[Gilded]

"I`ll turn no one away, but I have limits of patience! :)"

 

Ahh, so you're like Jesus?

[jdurg]

I always love the stories of incredibly stupid high-schoolers who try and steal sodium and potassium metal and just put it in their back pocket. A short while later their ass is on fire and they're suffering severe thermal and chemical burns. Or you have the idiots who think they can take a huge chunk of potassium and flush it down the toilet. lol.

[r1dermon]

i dont know of a high school that stores pure sodium, and especially pure potassium. unless in sealed ampoules in small quantities under vaccum or argon. the most dangerous thing we had at my HS was 30% HCl. heh. we were the type of high school doing those stupid experiments, like putting a balloon in ice water. lol. how fun.

[boris_73]

my high school did they stored it under oil but saying that anybody trying to steal it would be a fool not only because they would probably put it in there pocket and end up hurt but also the security in my high school was high, they had security cameas in every block, most rooms and the room which had all the chemicals always had a lab technition in it the only real time somebody would be able to manage stealing some chemicals would be when you were in college because they just let you go in and take what you needed as long as you had a teacher as a reference eg they ask you which teacher sent you, anyway nobody really stole any thing in my high school not that i know of there was no need realy

[Gilded]

You know, if I'm quite sure that it's illegal these days to use potassium in school experiments. Sodium is a safer option.

[boris_73]

well we had potassium in my high school so i dont think it is unless it's illegal in finland