I have decided to try to make RDX, with the results being posted if success ensues. This is actually my third explosive-guide-to-be, as as you can see, "Nitroglycerin with Pics" kinda hogs the airspace. I was suitably annoyed after systematically going through NG's production, taking pics and video clips, only to see it had been covered (twice).
Anyway, I've bought my hexamine, and I am going to produce 100% Nitric by reacting equal masses of KNO3 and H2SO4, and heating at just below 80 degrees to distill, as apparently HNO3 decomposes at it's boiling point. I will then leave my hexamine tablets on a hotplate at a reasonably low temperature, to remove excess moisture, and the wax that the tablets come with. From then I'll continue as per Megalomania's chem lab. If anyone has comments on why this may go wrong, I'd like to hear it, because I can't be wasting 100% Nitric (Hexamine costs next to nothing). Thanks.

As per above, success = guide, unless anyone says otherwise.

Hint: Hexamine is water soluable, wax is not soluable.

You may or may not already know this, but you can prevent the decomposition of the nitric acid by vacuum distillation. There are plenty of vacuum adapters out in stores for a distillation kits that you can hook an aspirator up to. The lower pressure lowers the boiling point of the HNO3 so it does not decompose when distilled. This is quite expensive though, so unless you are going to make a lot of HNO3, don't invest in this. I have also heard that you can use the nitration mix of HNO3 and H2SO4 to prevent the dcompostion of the hexamine during the reaction if you don't want to use the 100% HNO3 method. Since the H2SO4 is a dehydrant, it will absorb water, but I think that this will obviously lower your yeild of RDX.

Yes, I did know that, but I am only going to buy a vaccume-distiller if I successfully start making my own HNO3, through the B-E method ("Nitric acid from air and water" thread).

Unfortunetly, I do not think you can use the sulfuric in the same way as you do with making NG. It itself reacts with the hexamine and produces unwanted byproducts apparently.

Also, nice thinking Bert, but, for a million dollars; How would I seperate KNO3 and sugar? (My K3wl bro does love the smoke bombs, but used a little more KNO3 than I was happy with, and by a little, I mean a lot)

Potassium nitrate is less soluble at very low temperatures than sugar. A fractional crystallization will separate them-

180 g of sugar is soluble in 100 cc of water at 0 C.

13.5 g of Potassium nitrate is soluble in water at 0 C.

Dissolve as much as possible of the mix in boiling water, then chill- The majority of the crystals precipitated out will be the nitrate. You may need to perform the re-crystallization more than once.

I'll take the million in small bills, non sequential please.

Lol, you can have your money if you climb to the top of everest. There'll be a package there, and it'll say.. "Sorry, come back later". This is a *little* off topic, so I'll put it back on by asking about making the 100% HNO3. Does the H2SO4 turn into it, or does the HNO3 evaporate, and have to be condensed? Also, It isn't equal masses, is it?

I assume you mean making NA by a nitrate salt and sulfuric acid.
The H2SO4 and xNO3 reacts, and will produce HNO3 and a useless byproduct, something like xSO4.
The mixture will than have to be distilled aswell.
By molar mass, the KNO3 method is in somewhat equal masses, KNO3 and H2SO4 is both at around 100 g/mol +-2 or something. But it is quite troublesome to dissolve 100 grams of KNO3 in 100 grams of sulphuric acid.

I usually go by double the amount of acid, to KNO3.

Ballance the reaction, Gothy. You've got some water to account for.

With a nitrate salt and conc. sulphuric acid there is no water in the solution.

Yes, I thought it reacted, and would have to be distilled, but a recent document I read, author "Nbk2000" said it would "condense in the neck of the retort." I'm not sure if it was Roguesci's NBK, or an imposter though. It's called: "Nbk2000 explosives and poisons guide".

Ah yes, Brainfever's site has it condensing. I wonder if it has to also be distilled from the mix too?

If you want 100% HNO3 it DOES need to be distilled, and it would condense in the retort(although a condenser is preferrable). Nitrate +Sulfuric-> Nitric +Sulfate. The Nitric Acid will have little water in it (depending on the amount of water in the reactants) but it will have Nitrate, Sulfate and Sulfuric in it, thus it will not be 100% Nitric.

If this is fine for RDX which I am not sure it is, you will also need to remember that a reaction in solution is an equilibrium reaction which means that 2 mols of KNO3 + 1 mol of H2SO4 will not give you 2 mols of HNO3 outright. An equilibrium will be reached where there is a certain amount of all 4 reactants in solution, as the Nitric gets used in the nitration more of the remaining nitrate and Sulfuric will be converted into Nitric, but there will also be more water in the mix. What this means for you is that you need to use a good deal more KNO3 and Sulfuric than simple stoicheometry would tell you.

NGfan, when you say that it has to condense, than it is basically just the same thing as distilling. Distilling just desribes the general procedure. Whereas condensing is the the sole term for something cooling, and turning back to its liquid state.

So to sum up: Yes it will have to be distilled, therefore it will condense in your condenser/neck of retort - w/e you are using in this procedure.

EDIT: Oooh knowlegehungry, I want to discover the joys of subscripting too. How did you do that?

Ah yes, I meant, during the heating, it will condense, and after, there is still liquid, which apparently has to be distilled to get more HNO3 out.

NGfan: I really don't understand your question, it seems to me that you have very little knowledge of the concept of distillation. I would suggest you take a look at this thread http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=1892&highlight=HNO3+easy+way for a simple way to get percentage HNO3.

Gothy: Subscripting is done with code. The code for HNO3 is HNO(sub)3(/sub) using brackets [ ] instead of parantheses ( ).

Uh, I don't think I have little knowledge, unless there's some part of it I've somehow never heard of. I may have phrased my question wrongly.

What I meant was, as per brainfever's site, the sulfuric acid and KNO3 when heated will give off vapours that'll condense on the sheet, and dribble into the beaker. I have been led to beleive that that is supposedly 100% HNO3, which I doubt.

I was just being a little stupid, I was wondering what you do with the rest of the liquid that is in the bottom, but I've realised it would just be a mixture of potassium hydrogen sulfate and unreacted sulfuric acid.

However, none of this really matters anymore, as all my acids have been stolen, leaving me with only KNO3, so I'm going to have to rely on the manufacture of 100% HNO3 as per the "nitric acid from air and water" thread, and sufficient pressure, or a rotavap... I suppose I could use battery acid, and KNO3 but apparently there's tons of contaminants.

I am sorry I did not understand your question.

If you are using the method on Brainfever's site which I believe is the same one as in the thread I pointed you to, then the impurities in the Battery Acid should not be a problem. Make sure you fully charge the battery first, then heat acid until white fumes form, continue boiling for a couple minutes, then your battery acid should be relatively high concentration, which you can then use in the production of Nitric as you would use regular Sulfuric.

If you use the method you were talking about take a look at the thread I posted, it is all about said method.

By the way, how did your acids get stolen and why? It is generally not good when your concentrated acids go missing, as either some kid is going to get hurt or someone is going to use it for something nefarious and it could come back to you.

No, anyone with half a brain could see the fault was mine.

Thanks Knowldgehungry, this means the project may commence, instead of waiting for that damn transformer to arrive(ten days now). I'm struggling to find things that HNO3 won't corrode, as some plasticks but not others seem to work. Al is good, but only after it forms it's own anti-corrode layer.

Yeah, it IS some kid who is going to get hurt, my cousin. After demonstrating to him what I do in my spare time, I.e, make HE's, he has taken them for himself, without my consent. Needless to say I was enraged, as he took about three litres of 36% HCL, a litre of 70% HNO3, and two litres of 100% H2SO4. It won't come back to me though, he lives fifty miles from me. And by that I mean that I'll never get them back as well as it'll never trace back to me.

He is THE MOST k3wlish person you will ever meet, and he will almost definetly fail miserably in making NG, which was what I demonstrated to him. If I'm lucky, right now, HNO3 is forming in his lungs as a result of his inability to do anything properly.

Still, it'll be interesting to see how it is making HE's from household products, as so many others without the access I have have to chemicals have to do. I was going to make picric acid too, but I'm not sure if it'll work with battery acid... I'll just have to distill it, and work from there.

RDX guide should be in the next week or so, except that no-one seems to want it :confused: .

Al is good, but only after it forms it's own anti-corrode layer.

Beware though, boiling hot HNO3 might eat that up while room temp won't.

If you cousin kills, or just fucks himself up badly, you can still get in deep shit, because it's likely your fingerprints will be on the bottles of acid they'll find.

And do you think he'd tell them 'I stole it from my cousin'?

No.

He'll say 'He gave them to me and told me to make this eviiiiil explosive or he'd kill me!'.

:)

Of course, if it was my cousin I'd get mine in first:
Dead men tell no tales.

Maybe that's just me though.

Good points, but firstly, I only ever wear rubber gloves when touching the bottles, and secondly it was his dad that sold them to me, as he can get them legitimately, so the police will not have to look for a source other than his dad. You see, there is a reason his dad sold them to me instead of him; He is stupid BEYOND COMPREHENSION.

Yes, he is really that stupid. His method for making NG, and I watched this with my own eyes, was to firstly pour out NM onto the table, then glycerin, as obviously the "Nitro" in NM, and the glycerin would 'fuse' to make NG. His second method was to try to get the "Nitric" in HNO3 to make the glycerin NG. While this was not far off, his method was; Blowtorch the HNO3, to see if it's flammable, blowtorch the Glycerin to see if it's flammable, and then pour both out in copious amounts onto the MDF table, now destroyed, and see if they're flammable or explosive then.

Yes, you can now fully appriciate why is is so bad he has them, and you may ask why I didn't stop him wasting these valuable chemicals, and the reason was that they were his then, and I found it amusing watching him waste them away... For some reason after that his dad never gave him any more chemicals...

Also, if he HAD made NG, his plan was to "Put it in a bottle and lob it at a tree".

But I phoned his dad, who is replacing my stolen acids, and probably giving him a beating, so I'm not so pissed anymore:p

Sounds like the opening scene of 2001, when one of the first tool-using apes is smashing stuff with a bone and throws the bone into air.

Only, in this case, it'd be your cousins (the ape) arms being blown into the air.

Ogk! Oook! (Smashes NG on table) BLAM!

:D