Couldn't really find a thread that answered what I'm interested in.

Found a place that sells KNO3 and i got a 50kg bag of prilled kno3, the guy there said they cant get it in power or crystallized form. I assume prilled means its formed into a compressed ball - thus there it is no diffrent from the powdered product chemically?

Don't want to open the bag and find out it wont work because they wont take back a opened bag :rolleyes:




Cheers

Naturally they prill the KNO3 so average people will retire of the idea to make mass amounts of explosives. If it is pure KNO3 prilled, all you gotta do is dissolve it in water and then evaporate the water and you got the raw form of it, you can then dry it out in an oven and hammer it into a powder or use a coffee grinder and beat it to a pulp. Simple as that, UTFSE!

Nope. All The KNO3 I buy is in prill form. I just lightly grind it up in a ball mill or morter and pestel until it reaches the "that looks about right" point. The prills work just fine (but dont be planning on grinding more than a pound because it will kill your arms).

If the prills a coated in anything (is a possibility) than I would advise you to grind as much as you want then dump it into a jar of luke warm water. Sift off any impurities and filter it out. Before you do any of this, grind a few prills fresh out of the bag and mix them with sugar ( 60/40 ratio) and ignite, if it ignites with no problems, then most likely it pretty pure and you won't have to put it in water first.

If you had searched for the keyword "prills" you would have found:
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=1899&highlight=prills
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=821&highlight=prills
- read post 19, very helpful for me:) .

BTW, my local farm currently has about 10 tonnes of prilled AN sitting in an isolated field:D .

Damn this stuff is hard to grind up, burns nicely with sugar so thats a good sign.

I always used to put small amounts in a blender I got at a yard sale, that was years and years ago. grind it till it cakes, then let the blender cool, scrape the caked stuff off, shake and blend again. Then pour through a strainer or screen if your app is that sensitive.

All I have to say is....... coffee grinder, it works perfect and in seconds. The only problem is most coffee grinders don't have enough room for a lot of anything so you have to grind it in segments.
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This is the one I have. As you can see it has a small "grinding chamber" although very effective.

The Potassium Nitrate Prills could easily be dissolved for recrystallization, this way time can be spent on other "Project Interests". 50 KG could take quite awhile in a Coffee Grinder. :rolleyes: But it would work well if used "As Needed".

Most fertilizers that I have ever bought always have had some dirt on the outside of the pill. An easy way to test this is to dissolve it in some water, if the solution is clear your good, if its orange or brown then usually a simple filter makes it clear. If you want to dissolve the KNO3 to make it into easy crushable crystals, then you can just make a solution with boiling water and cool it to zero C as KNO3 isn’t that soluble in a cold solution as that could save days of boiling, then filter the solution through and old shirt and dry the crystals, there you go KNO3 that you can crush with your fingers to a fine powder. I have a graph on the solubility here that may help you.

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/pb_producer/images/detail/#184/potassiumnitrategraphhy7.png

Made a giant pestle and mortar (cylinder of sheet metal with a cap) and used a big metal rod to crush it up. Seems to have a little bit of moisture because it was a bit clumpy so ill have to dry it in the oven.

Just dissolved 200g in near boiling water, will filter tomorrow, cheers for the helpful graph

BTW, my local farm currently has about 10 tonnes of prilled AN sitting in an isolated field:D .

Make a very large booster like 1 kg APAN or a stick of commercial dynamite, then you know what to do :D

I found a cheap source of KNO3 which, also was in prill form.
Through tests i have found that it was coated in another potassium salt (probably KSO4). does anyone have any good ways of seperating this?

Dump it into boiling water, stir till dissolved throw in freezer, now pure KNO3 will percipitate, filter out and dry.

Search before asking simple questions again.