Potassium carbonate, (K2CO3), also known as potash, because it used to be made out of wood-ash. Potassium occurs native in considerable amounts but never by it’s self. It’s usually combined with silica in many minerals or as potassium chloride, potassium sulfate and in various plants with organic acids. In the 1800’s potash was often refined from wool. After shaving the sheep the wool is washed off and the water now containing potash is boiled down. Since most people live in town and there aint a lot of sheep in town I am going to show you how to make it out of ashes instead. One good use for this is to slow the burning of gun powder and make it burn reder than normal.
The residue left from the ignition of plants, contains the mineral substances which the plant has taken from the soil, mostly potassium, soda, lime, magnesium, small quantities of the protoxides of iron and magnesium, combined with phosphoric, sulphuric, silicic and carbonic acids, and also with the haloids. These combinations are not, the same as those of the living plant, because the high temperature of the ignition has the effect of changing the affinities. Plants growing inland generally contain more potassium and plants growing by the sea contain more soda. The bark and leaves of plants have more potassium carbonate so if you use a tree don’t just use the wood.
The following is a list of plants, which contain, per 100 parts the most potassium carbonate.
:Plant Percent potash : Plant Percent potash : ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: : Pine .045 : Vine-wood .550 : : Ash (Fraxinus Americana) .074 : Barley-straw .580 : : Poplar .075 : Beach-bark .600 : : Beech .145 : Stems of maize (Indian corn) 1.750 : : Oak .153 : Bean-straw 2.000 : : Box-wood .226 : Sunflower-stems 2.000 : : Willow .285 : Nettles 2.503 : : Elm .390 : Vetch-straw 2.750 : : Wheat-straw .390 : Thistles 3.537 : : Bark from oak knots .420 : Wheat previous to blooming 4.700 : : Dried ferns .425 : Wormwood, sage brush 7.300 : : Cotton-grass (Eriophorum vaginatum) .500 : Fumitory 7.900 : : Rushes .508 : : ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Once you figure out what to burn place it in a well-ventilated container; you could use a coffee can with holes poked in the side fore ventilation. It could look like this. Set something under it to collect the ashes that fall out.
| Can with holes in it. |
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Pull out any unburned chunks from the ash and put the ash in small watertight containers. Now thoroughly saturate the ash with water and leave it for 24 hours. The carbonic acid in the atmosphere may mix with the water and help brake down the potassium silicate in the ash. Poke holes in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket or similar container and make a bed of straw over the holes. The straw should be about a half inch thick. If you do not have straw you could use a similar grass or possibly a cotton sheet. Set a pan or something similar under the bucket to collect the potash. The next step is to place the wet ash in the bucket. Make sure to press the ash tightly against the bottom. Now pour cold water slowly over the ash until it starts to pour out the bottom and collect most of it in the pan, the water should be at least 15% potash. The liquor obtained by lixiviation is of a brown color, owing to the organic matter, humin or ulmine, which the potassium carbonate has dissolved from the small chips of imperfectly burned charcoal. Afterwards you can pour some hot water through the ash and collect the insoluble mass that stays in the bucket, it can be mixed in with your saltpeter bed. It helps because it contains a lot of phosphate of lime.
The boiling down of the liquor is carried on in large shallow iron pans; fresh liquor is added whenever the level of liquor gets low until a sample of the hot concentrated liquor exhibits a crystalline solid mass upon cooling. The pan that is used for this is pretty much ruined in the process and will never again be used to cook bacon and eggs. Next the contents of the pan are cooled down and broken up; it should be a dark brown, this crude product containing about 6% water is known as crude, or lump-potash. Note you can save the pan by stirring it as it is boiled down, the potash will be finer and contain more water when you’re done. The potash from the previous method will contain some potassium sulfate; if you want it to be purer you can scoop out the first crystals to solidify they will be mostly potassium sulfate. The potassium sulfate solidifies first because sulfates are less soluble than carbonates.
In order to remove all the water and organic matter in the potash it must be heated to about 245ºC or as hot as you can get it. Place several peaces of charcoal or coal around a ceramic dish. The dish should be 4 to 6 inches deep and about 6 to 8 inches in diameter so that it will be easy to heat. The potash is rolled into egg-sized balls and is placed into the dish. You should fill it about a third of the way. The potash is stirred as it is heated to help drive of the water. After almost an hour the organic mass should catch on fire and the potash will turn black at first and turn white as the carbon is burned off. As soon as this stage is reached the potash is removed from the heat and once it is cool it should be placed in watertight containers; you could use film cans dipped in wax.