I read A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) a few months ago, and it had some interesting tidbits about Phorphorus. For instance, the discoverer (cant remember who it was) was trying to get gold out of urine. They attributed gold to the color of the urine, so thats why they thought they could get gold out of it. Anyways...it said that after using "a few recondite practices" he turned the urine into a waxy substance that ignited spontaneously.

 

My question is...

Does anyone know what these 'recondite practices' may be?

 

Thanks in advance.

how does this have anything to do with phosphorus? and what allotrope are you looking for?

What I meant was...

How do you extract phosphorus from urine?

from what I remember, gallons of the stuff was boiled down over a long period of time over a fire in a glass vessel, when the light was off (candles and oil burners) the stuff gave off a glow.

but it did require MANY gallons, and probably stunk to high heaven too

 

edit: Lookup "Hening Brand" and "Robert Boyle" this`ll help fill in some of the gaps, for example: http://www.ul.ie/~childsp/CinA/Issue60/TOC55_Urine.htm

Oh the marvellous things you can do with feces and urine in chemistry.

Absolutely!

 

wars were won using it, in fact it was DEMANDED of the people to make their own "processing heaps" as part of the war effort to make Gunpowder, it was even collected at night from the back of peoples homes.

 

now that`s what I CALL a Sh!ty job! )

Brandt discovered White Phosphorus by collecting LARGE amounts of urine and letting it putrify in a bathtub, I believe. When it became putrid and thickened up, he then boiled/heated it with charcoal. This was all performed in a large distillation apparatus where the white phosphorus vaporized and then condensed inside a distillation flask. Brandt then noticed that the white, waxy substance inside was emitting light when it was exposed to the air. Hence the name "phosphorus" which roughly means "bearer of light" in Greek.