KNO3 from Ammonium Nitrate and KCl

The following shows how to obtain KNO3 from Ammonium Nitrate and Potassium
Chloride. Ammonium Nitrate is commonly available as a fertilizer as well as KCl which
is called Muriate of Potash. The Ammonium Nitrate can be in pure form where it will
have 35% nitrogen written on the bag (100% actual Ammonium Nitrate, 0% filler). It is
usually mixed with an inert filler and will not be pure and may have 27% nitrogen written
on the bag (77.2% actual Ammonium Nitrate, 22.8% filler). The filler is not a problem.
The muriate of potash usually comes pure or fearly pure and will have 52.4% K written
on the bag (100% actual KCl, 0% gunk) if using molar percent to describe the content of
the bag OR it will have 0-0-63 (63% K2O) written on the bag (using percent K2O to
describe what is in the bag). It may be a little less pure and will have ~50% K (or ~62%
K2O) written on the bag (95.4% actual KCl, 4.6% gunk).
If the KCl is not pure it should be recrystallized and then used.
Another possible source of KCl is with the people who sell equipment for softening
water. Sodium Chloride is usually used in theses devices but some people object to
haveing any Sodium ion in their drinking water so they need to use Potassium Chloride
instead, so you may be able to get a bag of Potassium Chloride in the same place as
where they supply the NaCl for the water solteners

Getting a 50% solution of Ammonium Nitrate

If the Ammonium Nitrate is not pure it will have to be purified. It is difficult to
recrystalize the Ammonium Nitrate as the precipitated Nitrate will be mixed with the
inert filler. The best (and handiest) way to deal with the Ammonium Nitrate is to make a
50%wt solution of it and use that in the process. To make a 50% you should take about
3KG of the Ammonium Nitrate (pure or otherwise) and dissolve it in one liter of water.
An Aluminium or stainless steel container is ok. It will look like an awful lot of
Ammonium Nitrate but it will all dissolve. You will need to heat the water as the solution
will get very cold (its uses in freezing packs after all) when the Ammonium Nitrate is
dissolving and you will want to hurry it up. When all the Nitrate has dissolved (this will
have happened at 50C or less) you should stop heating. The solution may be very cloudy
because of the inert filler in the Ammonium Nitrate but it's ok. Let the solution settle and
all inert filler will fall to the bottom. There may be some of the inert filler floating around
on the top which you can lift off with a spoon. Let the solution cool slowly to one of the
chosen temperatures in the table below. You should make sure that some Ammonium
Nitrate has crystallize out as long pretty needles at your chosen temperature. This will
happen if you have proceeded as described above.
When the solution has reached your chosen temperature pour or siphon off as much of
the clear(ish) liquid as possible and put into a seperate container. Sometimes the inert
filler is very fine and some will still be suspended in the solution but you will be able to
get rid of it later. Don't be tempted to be greedy and contaminate your clear(ish) solution
with much of the solid material that is at the bottom of the container that you are
 siphoning from. The solution that you have siphoned (or poured) off will be a certain
percentage of Ammonium Nitrate as shown in the table. ie. if you let your solution cool
to 20C it will have 65.5g Ammonium Nitrate per 100g of solution. The particular
temperature you choose is up to you. The more you cool, before siphoning, the more
Ammonium Nitrate will come out of solution and you may feel you are wasting
Ammonium Nitrate and may wish to sipnon off at one of the higher temperatures. As
stated above, make sure that Ammonium Nitrate is actually precipitating in long needles
at your chosen temperature before you start to siphon.
Temperatures, %wt &
amount of water per gram
solution to add to get a
50%wt solution
Temperature Weight % Grams water to add per gram solution
30 70.4 0.408
25 68.2 0.364
20 65.5 0.31
Weigh the clear(ish) solution that you have obtained by siphoning (or pouring) and for
every gram of solution that you have add the amount of water that it says to add in the
table. For example if you have a total weight of 1670g of solution, and you let your
solution cool to 20C before siphoning off the clear(ish) liquid then you should add 1670 *
0.31 = 518 grams of water to the solution to obtain 1670 + 518 = 2188g of solution. Stir
and dissolve any Ammonium Nitrate that may have came out of solution. You will now
have a 50% solution of Ammonium Nitrate for the next stage of the process. Put the
solution in a tallish container with a lid and if there is any suspended filler still in it, it
will fall to the bottom after about 24 hours. You can then siphon (or pour carefully) the
now perfectly clear solution of 50% Ammonium Nitrate for the next stage of the process.
Save it in a container with a lid, you don't have to use it all at once.
If you have pure Ammonium Nitrate to start with you don't have to bother with the 50%
solution, you can just use as is.
The remainder of the Ammonium Nitrate that was left in the heating container can be
discarded if your Ammonium Nitrate has inert filler in it, or if your Ammonium Nitrate
was pure (If you are using freezer packs) you can save it for the next time you want to
make up a 50% solution of Ammonium Nitrate. Don't throw in drains etc. Dilute it with
plenty of water and spread it on grass.

Making the KNO3

You can scale the following up or down.
Take 760cc (760g) of water and heat to about 50C. To this water add 3 mole (223.5
grams) of your recrystalized and dried KCl and dissolve. Add 480grams of your
Ammonium Nitrate solution.
You will now have one liter of water with 3 moles of Ammonium Nitrate and 3 moles of
KCl dissolved in it. Note: You won't actually have a liter of SOLUTION as dissolving
the salts in the water will increase the volume.
If you are using pure Ammonium Nitrate (you did not bother with the 50% solution
above) you should take one liter of water, 223.5grams KCl and 240grams solid (pure)
Ammonium Nitrate.
All of the salts will be dissolved and if not the solution should be heated more untill they
are.
The solution is now cooled slowly, the slower the better. Slow cooling gets you larger
crystals of KNO3 which is desirable as they wash better. When the solution has cooled to
room temperature it should be placed in the freezer and cooled to about -12C. Don't let
any ice form. If you don't have a freezer it is ok but will get much less KNO3 out, in fact
you can improvise your own "freezer" by making a freezing mixture of Ammonium
Nitrate and water and putting the container which has your solution sitting in it.
The KNO3 will come out of solution. The KNO3 can now be seperated out by filtering
through a cloth. The crystals should be squeezed when then are in the cloth to get rid of
as much of the liquid as possible. The crystals can now be washed in cold (0C) water by
simple putting the cloth containing the crystals into the cold water and moving it up and
down a number of times so that the water flows in through the cloth to the crystals. The
cloth, still with the crystals in it, it taken out and squeezed so that as much of the washing
water is got rid of. The yield of KNO3 is about 175 grams KNO3. The KNO3 should be
recrystallized for maximum purity.
The liquid that the KNO3 has come from will have KNO3 and Ammonium Chloride
dissolved in it and this can be saved if you want to attempt to take out some Ammonium
Chloride from it later. The Ammonium Chloride would be useful if you were making
Ammonium Perchlorate from Sodium Perchlorate....but thats another story.
Below is an explaination of what is going on.
Substance KNO3 NH4NO3 KCl NH4Cl
Grams/mole 101.1 80 74.5 53.5