Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: FluManuk on 08/03/2004 15:53:01

Title: Need to extract potassium
Post by: FluManuk on 08/03/2004 15:53:01

Is there anyway to get/make the potassium (sulfate ?) from common fertilizer (NPK) ?
I'm not about to make bomb or that sort. I need it for making PMDD(Poor Man Dosing) for aquascaping purpose, surely without the N or P.

Title: Re: Need to extract potassium
Post by: Ylide on 09/03/2004 08:12:42

I don't think it's elemental nitrogen, phosphorous, or potassium.  I'm betting the nitrogen is in an ammonium salt and the phosphorous is in a phosphate salt.  One of the two may be the potassium salts.  You'd need to remove any filler and isolate the pure salts, then you could try precipitating out the unneeded stuff...do some solubility tests.  

You could probably plate the potassium back out of solution with an electrochemical cell.



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Title: Re: Need to extract potassium
Post by: etews2 on 18/05/2004 01:16:45

A good FARM store (as in selling to farmers) will carry potassium cloride as a pure material.