KCl03 from match heads

[texaspete]

I was looking through bugetpyro's site, and I saw that he had purified potassium chlorate from match heads. (link: http://budgetpyro.tripod.com/id60.htm) I'm in need of a relatively small amount of KClO3 (less than 20 grams), so I decided to give it a shot.

Here is what I tried:
I cut off a bunch of match heads (100 or so), put them in a small beaker with 70% isopropyl alcohol, heated it, and occasionally stirred it until the red mixture (the chemicals on the match head) was separated from the wood. I then ran all of this through a filter, and allowed the filtered liquid to evaporate. What I got in the end wasn't exactly crystal, but solidified in long strands. i scraped it up and did a burn test on a portion. It burned brightly and quickly. Now this is obviously somewhat impure, as pure oxidizer will not burn. Is this as high a purity as is possible? Or has anyone else managed to somehow further purify it?

Thanks!

Pic of what was left after the solution evaporated http://i6.tinypic.com/123o76w.jpg (it's clumped up because I was going to just collect it, but I thought to take a picture.)

[tmp]

Potassium Chlorate, looks like a white clump of cactus needles when crystallized slowly. That's what my KClO3 looks like when I produce it from electrolysis of KCl. The powder is white.

[tomu]

Potassium chlorat is insoluable in alcohol, use boiling water as a solvent instead.

The chlorat you will get this way will always be ladden with impurties, so be careful.

[deadman]

there are also small amounts of red phosphurus on many matches

[Jacks Complete]

Depending on what you want it for, the heads alone might be fine without filtering. I always used to simply scrape the heads apart with a knife on two sides (and then you can still use them as a match) and then wet the mix and grind it up into a slurry. This slurry was good to go after drying, and very fun. Obviously, it was like a giant match head. :-)

[texaspete]

I have some Al powder, and I was hoping to extract the KClO3 to make flash powder. That's why I want to purify it as much as I can.


Quoting whole posts is annoying, so don't do it in the future

[D-Fens]

I tried this with water and the red clumps appeared with mine too however it wouldnt burn so i suggest you try it with water.

[Bert]

The major ingredients of safety match heads are KClO3 and hide glue IIRC. Hide glue is very water soluable... I'd be boiling bleach or pool chlorinator before I tried to extract chlorate from match heads.

Oddly enough, the chlorate we buy is manufactured in Spain for the match industry. Very pure, much purer than the perchlorate we can buy these days-

If you want to do something fun with match heads, a Russian pyro showed me how to make nozzleless rockets with match heads as fuel. Anyone wanna learn how?

[Chaosmark]

If you want to do something fun with match heads, a Russian pyro showed me how to make nozzleless rockets with match heads as fuel. Anyone wanna learn how?

Now THAT seems like an interesting thing to learn to do. No restrictions on matches after all! If nothing else, I'd read the post if you wrote it up.

[wulli]

The best way to get KClO3 is in my opinion the elextrochemical oxidation of NaCl. You`ll get NaClO3 ,which you can mix with an equimolar amount of KCl in hot water. As KClO3 is not well-soluble in cold water [1g in 100g water I think] By cooling it in the freezer you will get white crystals.

It is the cheapest and most save way to obtain high quality Chlorates with only small amounts of impurities, you should have 1gr NaCl in 1000gr of KClO3 if you will work properly.

http://budgetpyro.tripod.com/id60.htm

don´t want to be an expert poster :
But this site is horrible!

[nbk2000]

Bert, is that the trick of laying a paperclip along the match, and wrapping the head with foil, using another match to ignite the 'rocket'?

[Bert]

No, nbk2000, this is much better, but more labor intensive. I've seen these things go 200' straight up.

Take a whole book of matches, pinch and crush the composition gently from all the tips with a long nosed pliers. Gently crush the composition on a small piece of Aluminum foil until uniformly powdered. Add a small amount of SPIT to the mix and stir with a tooth pick until you have a slurry thinner than peanut butter, but not so thin as maple syrup. Plain water does not work nearly as well as spit for some reason Gentle heat from a light bulb may be helpful to speed the procedure... This is your fuel.

Take a 3" X 5" file card and cut enough to roll around a pencil 3 times, yielding a tube 3" long and 3 ply's thick. Glue the outside edge with a thin line of white glue, you may need to hold edge until dry. Allow tube to completely dry.

Take the match head slurry fuel and the tooth pick mixing rod, paint the whole inside of the tube as evenly and completely as possible with the fuel slurry. You are trying to achieve the largest burning surface area possible to maximize thrust. Set aside in a warm dry place to completely dry. This is your engine case with "case bonded fuel grain". Handle gently when dry to prevent fuel flaking off the inside of the tube.

When the fuel is dry, cut a couple of pieces about three times as wide as the end of your engine off the unused portion of the file card for an end cap.. Take the wood end of an unsharpened pencil and place in the center of the squares while they sit on something slightly yielding such as a piece of stiff rubber, press down hard enough to make the piece somewhat concave with a round, flat indentation. Trim the piece to an "X" shape, leaving a bit of material past the indented area. Glue these end caps over the end of the tube, off setting one by 45 degrees from the other. You may find a turn or two of thin tape useful to hold these while they dry. This is your front bulkhead, the weight also serves to bring the center of gravity forward and stabilize the rocket in flight. The more neatly done this step, the better the aerodynamics. Additional forming of the caps over the end of the pencil after cutting may be helpful. Before the glue is dry so it will be easier, take a pin or thin needle and punch a hole in one side of the tube as close to the top and at 90 degrees to the bore of the tube as you can. The fuel must be lit at the TOP of the engine to maximize performance-

Take about 4 more match heads and powder them. Add a small drop of spit, not nearly as much as for the fuel, you want a consistency like modeling clay this time, not a slurry. Roll the bit of damped composition between your fingers into a thin stick, perhaps 3/8" or 1/2" long and as thin as you can make it- It must fit through the pin hole you made in the engine case. This is your fuse. After the engine and the fuse are dry, insert the fuse through the hole.

For launching, a thin rod such that the rocket slips over it easily may be fixed in an upright fashion (I have used a disposable chop stick from Chinese take out for this) and the rocket set upon it. You may also lay it in a trough, or set it upright in a small pill bottle or 35mm film can, any thing to stabilize it until it comes up to thrust. The fuse must be accessible, of course.

Using a cigarette or incense/punk stick, LIGHT THE FUSE, BOY!!! This is the RPG of match rockets...

The guy who showed us this trick had pictures of a model rocket I recall as about a meter long, perhaps 40 mm bore he made with the same methods and fuel. The engine was the whole length of the model below the nose cone, no recovery system. He took theodolite height measurements showing it achieved an altitude of near 2000 meters (he did use fins and a launch lugs/launch rod on that one). Poor soviet engineering students under USSR were very inventive, no?

Nozzle less rocket engines sacrifice some performance theoretically, but in practical use may attain very good performance and are much easier to construct.

(edit)
Damn, just realized there is a huge thread on match rockets. Perhaps this should be moved???

[0010110]

I agree with wulli on the best way to obtain KClO3. Except I pefer to just use potassium chloride to skip that last stage. I have also done the decomposition of hypochlorite and I have obtained pretty good yeilds. I have tried the synthesis outlined on frogfots site. It works pretty well, but after trying it so many times I kinda developed my own method. the is also a synthesis out lined (on frogfots) called disproposition of chlorine gas, that I would like to try, for fun. I have used KClO3\sucrose as rocket fuel but never made any good flash powder I couldnt get my hands on aluminum powder. I tried to grind fillings but it was no use.