Making Potassium Chlorate For Flash Powder
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Potassium chlorate is a strong oxidizer. This experiment only requires a single chemical when using electrolysis. Potassium chloride (KCl). Through the use of electricity KCl can be oxidized to KClO3, AKA potassium chlorate. This experiment requires a mixed metal oxide anode, a stainless steel cathode (although there are other choices), and a power source. And testing the KClO3 will certainly give us a bright flash powder!
If you’d like to contact me please email at: glenn@cranialconstruction.com
Please consider supporting this channel by donating through PayPal. Link is above.
Thank you as even the smallest of donations helps!
Disclaimer: Under no circumstances will Cranial Construction be held responsible or liable in any way for any content, including but not limited to, any errors or omissions in the content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of any content communicated in this video, whether by Cranial Construction or a 3rd Party. In no event shall Cranial Construction, or any name otherwise implied to be used in place of Cranial Construction that redirects to the same, be responsible for any consequential damages or loss connected to reproducing any of this video’s content, descriptions, visual aids, or instructions. Cranial Construction assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. Use any and all information at your own risk. Any injury, damage, or personal loss that may result from the improper use of any tools, equipment, or chemicals, or from any of the information contained in this video, is the sole responsibility of the user and not Cranial Construction.
This video is strictly for demonstration purposes only.
2KCl + 2H2O ---> Cl2 + 2KOH +H2 (Chlorine oxidized from -1 to 0; Hydrogen reduced from +1 to 0)
6KOH + 3CL2 -(heat)-> KClO3 + 5KCl +3H2O (KClO3 is insoluble in water)
It's balanced and it works!
The crystalisation is my favorite part of any of these processes. I had gotten a six inch long crustal of potasium nitrate when i put it in a thermos to cool over a couple days. Wanted to do the same thing with the chlorate, but i ran out of patience after running the cell for six months.
Fyi, if doing this long term its ok to use carbon electrodes, but the salt will seep and climb up through the pores and destroy your contacts. You can either leech it out of the eletrodes with a few washes in boiling water, but its an extra step in an already maintenance intensive process to keep a garage set up alive.
KNO3 is beautiful and very easy to grow. Definitely on the recommended list. I've gotten sidetracked over time by the crystals and have gone down the rabbit hole of growing them to grow them.
If you want a challenge, try for large, and if you're really looking for fun, single... calcium chloride crystals. If you can get conditions right, they form these hexagonal axial cladded rods that are beautiful. I've seen it exactly once so far 🤣
I was wondering if carbon would be an option. We used nickel oxide coated stainless steel electrodes in the chlor-alkali plant I worked in with Nafion 969 membranes. Interesting process.
@@WildRapiercarbon rods work, either from batteries or welding gouging rods with the copper cladding removed. Carbon will break down over time and you'll have to filter it out of your cell liquor.
Hola puedo utilizar las varillas que utilizo un familiar para que piezen los huesos de su pierna ya que veo que no se ociean 😅
No sé si son de titanio o de acero inoxidable pero abra problema si utilizo el l mismo metal en el ánodo y cátodo?
I always use this method to make my potassium chlorate as well. Keep it up and God Bless!
By what witchcraft did you insert a link? Or maybe it's an automatic UA-cam thing I'm seeing...
God bless also!
What is the benefit of chlorate?
Despite having a full lab at my disposal, pickle jar chemistry is still nearest and dearest to my heart. Great vid as always! Also, when I try to donate via PayPal, it still says that you need to set up an account. I second the suggestion for another vid: Barium chlorate. Or maybe carry on with Scheele’s work and make anhydrous HCN.
Thank you for the PayPal info. I'm not sure why that's happening but I will look into it. Thanks for the topics suggested!
Thank you Art!!
Can you also produce potassium perclorate?
Awesome video.
I think you should make a video on barium chlorate synthesis next😁.
Definitely on the list. Thanks!
I'm curious as to what microscope you used to make those beautiful pictures? Have you heard about 'fractional crystalization'? With that method it is possible to separate two salts in solution when they have a different temperature/solubillity gradient. I used it to make KClO3 from NaCl and KCl... Well presented as always, Kudo's!
That's how I do it because sodium chloride increases yield and pushes the KClO3 out of solution. I also don't generally bother with the math for run time and just keep adding KCl until I have as much product as I want. I've also used a 5v 3a phone charger as my power supply. I'm a little cheap, lol. It works though.
It's the Andonstar AD246S-M HDMI Digital Microscope. Excellent resolution. I would highly recommend it!
Does higher amperage increase the production speed? I wanna run my cell with 30 amps
Yes, as long as the electrodes can handle the higher amps
I may be miss-reading you but 400mA x 50cm3 is 20 000mA not 2000mA (2Amps)
No. You're correct. I typically use multiple sources to write the white board and I simply made a mistake. Thank you! However, the 2A which I used worked of course, but probably also lowered my yield.
@@cranialconstruction2218 We used to pull 4000 Amps @ 200 VDC in a chlor-alkali plant, that was on the small cell stack (39 cells). The larger stacks of 60 pulled 3500 Amps @ 240 VDC, there were two. The whole plant could pull 3 MW at peak output. The power company would actually pay our company to ramp down the power draw at times in the summer. There was a hydroelectric dam a few miles away that could output ~3MW...so we were using all the power generated by that one dam to make bleach and pool shock...which was also used for drinking water treatment because of it's ability to pass a viscosity test that other sources could not (due to excess NaOH)...we ran @ 4 mg/L excess. Other companies would be at 20-40 mg/L.
Nice video. You might consider what happens if you power is lost and the cell cools down, it will reduce pressure and suck back your bicarb/bleach solution. The traditional anti-suck-back funnel or an intermediate empty jar will fix that reasonably well.
I wonder if you passed the gases though a small hot arc (plasma lighter/boiler igniter) and then passed them through water you might be able to recover some dilute HCl might be worth testing seeing as you have most of the apparatus ready to repeat the experiment. Take care not to ignite the gases in a large volume and have liquid or sintered metal flame traps in case of temporary spark loss and gas build up.
Chlorate cell stops producing chlorine gas after 2-3 hr of run , it just make H2 and O2
Love your channel! Any chance you could platinize some titanium and take it to KClO4?
You need to use PbO2 for anode and titanium for catode to make KClO4 and power supply must run at 6 volt and 25-30 Amp.
I think I missed something. I thought you said at the beginning that you were going to use a Ti anode coated with Ru and Ir, but then you mentioned an MMO anode. I think you used the latter as the anode. What became of the coated Ti anode?
Two terms for the same thing. MMO means mixed metal oxide and the most common ones are Ru/Ir.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 Ah, got it. Thanks.
Nice video. With the reaction 6KCl + … -> 4KClO + Cl2 + …, what happens to the two moles of potassium left over? The chlorine leaves as gas so it can’t react with that. Does it make KOH or something? Thanks 😃
6:51 said Hypergolic, meant Hydroscopic. Sorry for being pet-titanic. :)
Was there a reason you dried out the chloride instead of just pouring the filtered water into the electrolysis vessel?
Probably just to get a better weight estimate as some was trapped in the solution and some weight was lost with the anti caking agent.
He probably did that to remove any other soluble impurities. But I guess it would not matter too much if you do it or not.
Probably to be able to weight how much potasium chloride he puts into the electrolysis cel since he just removed a bunch of anti caking agent.
Because after removing the anti-caking stuff I had no idea of what the exact weight of the remaining KCl was in solution. Also, the remaining purified KCl solution was in general a higher concentration than I wanted to do the electrolysis, doing some crude math. Crystallizing it and getting the exact weights I needed was the best option.
Makes sense. @cranialconstruction2218
Why not add some KOH directly to the solution to take up the chlorine gas? Won't that convert to KOCl which will make more KClO3 & make the process more efficient?
Nice!
You mentioned HClO3 in your solution.
Did you choose your temperature to avoid disproportionation at elevated temperatures?
Ho provato con elettrodi in grafite, ho attenuto un precipitato bianco, sento ancora l odore di cloro, sono riuscito oppure è koh precipitato?
El precipitado blanco podría haber sido clorato de potasio. El olor a cloro es común. ¿Qué tan bien resistió el grafito?
Ah, nobody asked yet so I'll go for it, the obvious question under any electrolysis video: would a graphite anode do?
Edit: Cool video as usual of course thx. ChatGPT answers yes to my question, but I'm more interested in someone actually knowledgeable's reply.
نعم يفعل ذلك
Graphite works but it falls apart and makes the solution dirty which you need to filter hot to get rid of graphite powder
@@Exotic_Chem_Lab thx, good to know!
@@slimani373 شكرَا
Graphite is the GP DIY inert anode but you do have to take into account degradation which varies depending on the solution it is in and the quality of the carbon. The alternative is MMO, platinum, titanium, nickel, etc it all depends on what you have, what you're working with, and how much you're willing to throw at an anode to make it happen, and how much you want to mess with the results of side reactions that ultimately will degrade any material given enough time, use, and um use. Yeah use. With extra letters in front.
should have filtered the solid crystals right after electrolysis before putting it into the fridge
Can still do a hot filtertration if you're going to recrystallize anyway.
Crystals will trap insolubles. To me one of the most frustrating aspects of recrystallization is that you're wasting your time if you don't have a nice clear solution at the start... no matter what you do the growing masses will engulf insoluble material. It doesn't take much clay for example to put the brakes on an energetic reaction down the line. As it is he would have still had some in the solution, coffee filter and cotton is "okay" but it doesn't catch the fine stuff very well at all. Settling and decanting is the way but tiiiime... sigh
Now make clo4 out of o3
You should have cleaned it up with high heat.
Stainless steel has a lot of chrome in the alloy up to 21%, so chrome plating shouldn't matter.
Except flash uses potassium perchlorate