Hello all,
Has anyone considered the calcium carbonate and salts you also put in with the ash- I would wager you have a high pH and are having lockout issues.
I used to use ash water (lye) for a pH up-PITA and messy.
To obtain the potash from ordinary ash, you must leach it out and through a chemical process seperate the calcium carbonate. Fortunately, calcium carbonate is not water soluable so simply mixing with water will seperate the calicum cabonate fromteh other soluables including sodium cloride and other salts. A further refinement is needed to obtain teh wanted chemical.
Here see for yoruself- I did.
Whatever we extract from wood ashes must be there to begin with. Wood ashes are a complex heterogeneous mixture of all the non-flammable, non-volatile minerals which remain after the wood and charcoal have burned away. Because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the fire gases, many of these minerals will have been converted to carbonates. Burned soil may also be present. So the ashes probably contain predominately sodium and potassium carbonate, sodium and potassium chloride, silica, and calcium carbonate.
If we add the ashes to water, the soluble potassium and sodium salts will dissolve while the insoluble silica and calcium carbonate will settle to the bottom. We can then drain off the water (containing the "good stuff") and throw the insoluble material away. To separate the chlorides from the soluble carbonates, we will exploit the greater solubility of the carbonates in hot water. We will bring the liquid to a boil and continue boiling until enough water boils away for an insoluble precipitate to form. This is very likely a mixture of sodium and potassium chloride. From this point, we will continue boiling until half of the remaining water is removed. At this point we can be reasonably certain that only the soluble carbonates remain in solution. We will carefully pour off the hot liquid into another container, leaving the solid material behind. As the liquid cools to room temperature, the less soluble sodium carbonate will precipitate leaving the more soluble potassium carbonate in solution. Finally, the remaining solution can be drained off and boiled to dryness, producing solid potassium carbonate.
http://cavemanchemistry.com/oldcave/projects/potash/
minds_I
Has anyone considered the calcium carbonate and salts you also put in with the ash- I would wager you have a high pH and are having lockout issues.
I used to use ash water (lye) for a pH up-PITA and messy.
To obtain the potash from ordinary ash, you must leach it out and through a chemical process seperate the calcium carbonate. Fortunately, calcium carbonate is not water soluable so simply mixing with water will seperate the calicum cabonate fromteh other soluables including sodium cloride and other salts. A further refinement is needed to obtain teh wanted chemical.
Here see for yoruself- I did.
Whatever we extract from wood ashes must be there to begin with. Wood ashes are a complex heterogeneous mixture of all the non-flammable, non-volatile minerals which remain after the wood and charcoal have burned away. Because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the fire gases, many of these minerals will have been converted to carbonates. Burned soil may also be present. So the ashes probably contain predominately sodium and potassium carbonate, sodium and potassium chloride, silica, and calcium carbonate.
If we add the ashes to water, the soluble potassium and sodium salts will dissolve while the insoluble silica and calcium carbonate will settle to the bottom. We can then drain off the water (containing the "good stuff") and throw the insoluble material away. To separate the chlorides from the soluble carbonates, we will exploit the greater solubility of the carbonates in hot water. We will bring the liquid to a boil and continue boiling until enough water boils away for an insoluble precipitate to form. This is very likely a mixture of sodium and potassium chloride. From this point, we will continue boiling until half of the remaining water is removed. At this point we can be reasonably certain that only the soluble carbonates remain in solution. We will carefully pour off the hot liquid into another container, leaving the solid material behind. As the liquid cools to room temperature, the less soluble sodium carbonate will precipitate leaving the more soluble potassium carbonate in solution. Finally, the remaining solution can be drained off and boiled to dryness, producing solid potassium carbonate.
http://cavemanchemistry.com/oldcave/projects/potash/
minds_I
topic.
