In this video I discuss the science and uses of nitrite compounds, and then test 7 different methods of making potassium nitrite.
These methods are tested for purity and percent yield via an array of qualitative and quantitative tests, and the most promising methods scaled up to try and create a meaningful quantity of usable potassium nitrite.
I also include a final purification step to clean any crude nitrite salt to 100% Purity.
This is by far my longest video, and it kind of had to be given the complexity of the tests and analysis. I have heard though that many of you prefer longer videos in general, so leave a comment if you'd like to see more long chemistry videos like this one!
NOTES: I also tried carbon and sulfur as reducing agents, but did not include them as they were both unreasonably difficult to clean up into a usable final product. This is because both carbon and sulfur are almost TOO good at reducing nitrate, and I ran into the same issue I did with the calcium formate where there was just a huge amount of byproduct and a violent decomposition. Additionally, ultrafine carbon requires celite filtration to remove completely. That said, both of these methods work (and are probably the cheapest per unit of mass) so definitely worth considering if the additional impurity isn't an issue.
Also, I forgot to mention it in the video, but silver nitrite is a fantastic intermediate for the synthesis of any other nitrite salt. Simply react any chloride salt with the silver nitrite and you'll be left with insoluble silver chloride along with the nitrite salt of whatever cation held the chloride.
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:43 Why Make Nitrite?
4:30 Systematic Procedure
5:32 Running 7 Methods
12:57 Extracting Nitrite from Reaction Matrix
14:27 Titration for Quantitative Results
18:51 Qualitative Tests
20:55 Bulk Synthesis of Top Performers
28:16 Analysis of Final Potassium Nitrite
33:34 Purification to 100%
37:25 Future Ideas and Lab Notes
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