Resource Guide: Making SN with Sodium Nitrate and Aluminium At Home! ( + Bonus: How to extract SN from curing salt)

[ABSOLUTION]

Thank you so much for writing this guide!
It all makes sense to me, and I'm keen to try it.

I'm just wondering, if every step is followed properly, will the leftover reactants and byproducts be successfully filtered and removed from the final product, leaving reasonably pure nitRITE suitable for use?

Or if there will be impurities, it won't cause issues?

 

[Dying science gal]

Thank you so much for writing this guide!
It all makes sense to me, and I'm keen to try it.

I'm just wondering, if every step is followed properly, will the leftover reactants and byproducts be successfully filtered and removed from the final product, leaving reasonably pure nitRITE suitable for use?

Or if there will be impurities, it won't cause issues?

There would be impurities except it shouldn't cause too much issues.

 

[Action]

Is there a good video on YouTube on how to convert sodium nitrATE to sodium nitrite?

 

[IsThisEverything]

How to extract SN from curing salts:

Goals
This section describes two methods to extract sodium nitRITE from a mixture of sodium nitRITE and sodium chloride (table salt), which is usually present in curing salts. Note that the methods below are untested.

Method 1 - Solubility
It is well known that salt is significantly less soluble than SN. Therefore, we propose the following procedure to separate SN from sodium chloride.

Note: The yield on this is absolutely terrible, since there just isn't that much SN in curing salts to start with, and solubility filtering is bad in general. But it should still work.

Materials - Curing salt (lots) - Tall cup, bottle, or graduated cylinder (x2) - Heating device, such as fire or hot plate - Coffee filter (A few) - Paper towel - SN test kit (You can get this from any pet store. You only need this if you want to test it.)

1. Put the curing salt into a tall cup, bottle or graduated cylinder.
2. Add large amounts of water to the curing salt.
3. Shake for 10 seconds (Seal the cap). Uncap, and then pour liquids through coffee filter. Pour the stuff caught in the coffee filter back (after drying, if there's lots) or dispose if there isn't a lot.
4. Boil out the filtered out liquids, until only solids remain. Repeat steps 2 through 4 with the curing salt until you have approx. 3x the amount of SN you need.
5. Discard or put away the remaining curing salt. Retain the mixture that you got through boiling.
6. Add water into the mixture you have. Shake for 5 seconds. Uncap, then pour through coffee filter. Boil.
7. Repeat step 6 as many times as necessary.
8. Test the salts you get out of step 7! The salts remaining after these solubility tests should be only SN!

Thank you for this information. Could you clarify step 3 - when you say put the stuff caught in the coffee filter "back", do you mean back in the mixture or dispose of it / put it aside?

 

[Dying science gal]

Thank you for this information. Could you clarify step 3 - when you say put the stuff caught in the coffee filter "back", do you mean back in the mixture or dispose of it / put it aside?

Sorry for being unclear~ Step 3 should read:
3. Shake for 20 seconds (Or shorter if too much of the salt gets dissolved), then pour liquids through a fine filter (such as coffee filter). Dispose of the contents which are caught in the filter.

Step 8 should read:
8. Test the remaining contents and ensure you have enough SN in the solution (via testing concentration)

Again, this is extremely theoretical and this is entirely untested.

Is there a good video on YouTube on how to convert sodium nitrATE to sodium nitrite?

A very good source I used:

Sodium nitrite - Sciencemadness Wiki

www.sciencemadness.org

Some stuff I found (did not review) that describes the procedure (a procedure, not necessarily the one I used).

 

[Action]

Thank you