Hello, i've been looking at ads on ebay about how to make barium and strontium nitrate. does anybody know how to make these compounds without having to spend money on info that is sometimes completely bogus???

thanks

what Sr and Ba salts are you starting with?

personally I take X amount of Nitric acid, and then add Ba or Sr carbonate to it until the Fizzing stops, the Ba or Sr should be in excess, and then Filter it and evap the water off.

If you don't have HNO3, you could also try with NH4NO3. This is available as fertilizer and as coolpack. If you use the fertilizer, then first dissolve all solid, and let the insoluble crap settle. The fertilizer is not pure NH4NO3, it contains 20% or so of chalk (dolomite).

 

The NH4NO3 then can be dried (just let it air-evaporate in a large dish), until you have a wet paste. This wet paste must be THOROUGHLY mixed with EXCESS of the barium carbonate and gently heated. This will give off lots of ammonia, do this process outside. Continue heating, until no more ammonia is formed. Then dissolve all of the wet paste in water and let all solid stuff settle. Keep the clear liquid and dispose of the solid stuff. The clear liquid can be evaporated and what remains is quite pure Ba(NO3)2.

how much acid would you use?

depends how much I want to make!

For each 100 grams of BaCO3 I would take just under 70 ml of concentrated (65%) nitric acid. You need to dilute the acid before adding it to the BaCO3. Dilute the acid 5 times and then add it to the BaCO3, and heat the liquid, until fizzling stops.

 

If you use acid of 40% concentration, then you need approximately 120 ml for 100 grams of BaCO3, diluted three times.

Hey, all, Texas City, Texas nearly disappeared when a large quantity of this type of fertilizer decided not to be fertilizer anymore!

 

Prilled product notwithstanding! (much harder to initiate). imp