Megalomania, please help!

[deezs]

First of all, congratulations to your site. It is far the best collection of useful recipes. But.. I have a question: how many recipes have you tried yourself? (in your dreams of course)
Now I'm interested in making Lead 2,4,6-Trinitro-3-Oxybenzoate. From your writing, it seems to be a good choice. The chemicals are the easiest to get, and it is simple to make. These are not the most important reasons, why I want to make it. You wrote, that it is not so shock sensitive, but explodes on contact with flame. This is what I need. I don't want to use AP or HMTD or Hg fulminate as a primer for my HE (picric acid).
So: I've tried to make some, from this stuff. I dissolved 2,4g Pb(NO3)2 in 50 ml water, heated to 90 deg C, and added 2.16g Na-benzoate, dissolved in some water. A lot of white precipitate appeared. It looks like benzoic acid. (Tomorrow I will thest it's melting point.)
The recipe says: "sodium benzoate, prepared by neutralizing 2 g of benzoic acid with 0.6 g of sodium hydroxide"
If you calculate the molar masses, you will see, that some benzoic acid remains unneutralized this way.
Is the recipe correcet? Where did you get it? Who is A. Kovache? Is he from Romania?

thanx in advance!

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"Don't belive anything, just because there is a good proverb for it."

"To avoid injury in a battle, watch them from the nearer hill."

[megalomania]

The lab is written for those with less than sophisticated scales. If you have a balance that can measure out the additional 0.055092 g, then by all means do so. In this case the possibility of error in allowing a strong base to enter the reaction may be bad.

My attorney has advised me to exercise my Fifth Amendment rights on the former question.

I know not where Dr. Kovache hails from.

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For the most comprehensive and informative web site on explosives and related topics, go to Megalomania's Controversial Chem Lab at http://surf.to/megalomania

[deezs]

Shit! I forgot, that I gave back the thermometer, I used for melting point tests. My other thermomether has a scale only to 105 deg C.
I'm sure, that the white precipitation is benzoic acid. It dissolves in NaOH.
What's missing from this recipe???
When you add a salt of an (almost) unsoluble acid to a solution, which is acidic, the acid will precipitate.
Anybody tried this? Or heared about somebody, who knows a guy, who made it?
Should I boil this suspension for a while? I don't think, that would help.
In an other topic, somebody asked, how will be trinitro benzoic acid from benzoic acid in aqueous solution. Please search the original recipe! Something is missing here!

About mesuring: I have allready used an analitical scale. (It is sure, that I will have acess to it this winter) It was interesting to watch on the led, how my fingerprint evaporates from the glass, which I placed onto the scale.
I just wanted to know, if it is important to make the Na-benzoate solution from benzoic acid with neutralizing, or is it good to make from Na-benzoate. I was thinking about, if the solvation of benzoic acid goes as the solvation of I2 in KI solution, and that few milligrams of benzoic acid has some catalitic effect. Now I don't think my theory was correct.
The recipe doesn't say anything about white precipitation, but sais: "Evaporate the mixture on a water bath to a small volume while the liquid still remains clear."
So, I'm sure something is not correct.



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"Don't belive anything, just because there is a good proverb for it."

"To avoid injury in a battle, watch them from the nearer hill."

[megalomania]

The information is apparently quite wrong. Check out my post in the High Explosives section here: http://theforum.virtualave.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000425.html

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For the most comprehensive and informative web site on explosives and related topics, go to Megalomania's Controversial Chem Lab at http://surf.to/megalomania