> Processing an unknown fertilizer/oxidizer

[30yearstoolate!]

Several Years ago, A friend of mine gave me a empty Pepsi bottle.

He said, "There's a bunch of fertilizer in the back of my dad's dump truck. Go ahead and take some... you might find a use for it someday!"

While I was cleaning yesterday, I found it. I have no idea what kind it is, how pure it is, but I do know that I have an old 20oz bottle of it and I want to find a (good) use for it.

I used a little bit with my house plants .... it works great!

But that is all I know. I have found out that it's mass is roughly 1.8 lbs using a highly accurate bathroom scale which is nowhere nearly accurate enough for anything else.

I like pyrotechnics and have a good supply of smokeless powder but it would be nice to find something else to use it for.

After some research I haven't found a way to determine if it is an oxidizer or combination of oxidizers with minerals added.... it looks like gravel with a couple types of crystalline structures.

One type of crystal looks slightly like a white translucent "bead" without an actual hole through it. Although, it is clearer in the center than the outside. Another type of crystal looks like a miniature comet or snowball. White with a slight sparkle. The final type of crystal looks ..... well... like dirt. Grainy and brown with tan-ish and red-ish particles in it.

I can post pictures and I also have very basic labware and some chemicals. Let me know what you guy's think and if anyone has any hints on how to process it or what to do with it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No self signing posts

[Jome skanish]

Do the tongue-test for the "cool" taste of KNO3, or the "saltier than salt" taste of (NH4)2SO4

Other than that... Is it completely soluble? If not, how much water is needed to dissolve the soluble part? Does the water cool down or warm up when it is dissolved? If you insert a little into a flame, how does the color of the flame change?

There are myriads of ways to analyze an unknown chemical.

[totenkov]

"Find a chemical for a use, not a use for a chemical." If you don't have a use for your "oxidizer" then send it to mega.

Don't post topics in the wrong section for fear of a ban. There is a section specifically devoted to your topic, so make use of it.

If you have pictures that you wish to upload, put them in your profile.

[Cobalt.45]

He said, "There's a bunch of fertilizer in the back of my dad's dump truck. Go ahead and take some... you might find a use for it someday!"About the best you could hope for would be that the fertilizer is either KNO3 or ammonium nitrate. But most likely it's just some 8-8-8 or other dirt cheap, common fertilizer.

AN and KNO3 are (in many places) readily available and not too expensive- enough so that if your time is worth a nickle, you will have lost money by the time you run down what it is and then purify/recrystallize it (if there's anything worth saving, that is).

IMHO, unless this is just an exercise to see if you can figure it out, do yourself a favor and just sprinkle it onto your plants and water in well.;)

[30yearstoolate!]

Plant food it is then. It would be nice to process it, but the time part is right. It's not worth all of mine, to get who knows what, out of it.

Thanks for the input all.