Ammonium Chloride

[tomjuan]

Can I react drugstore ammonia (ammonium hydroxide solution) with hardware store muriatic acid to obtain ammonium chloride that will be good enough to work in reactions?

[Rhodium]

Yes, definitely. Just add the solutions to each other SLOWLY. The reaction is very exothermic, and will produce a lot of smoke, so try to do it in a closed apparatus (RB flask with addition funnel). Then you evaporate the water and you will get quite pure crystals of ammonium chloride.

[tomjuan]

Thank you immensly.

[PrimoPyro]

Be very careful however. i tried this a long time ago and it splashes a lot. i did it outside tho. and btw it will take awhile to boil off the water, and it will contain either acid or base molecules in it, so try to get the mix perfect or ur nose will hate you, know which the excess is (A or B) and bubble the distillate into a catcher bath to be safe.
Of COURSE we don't know what we're doing! That's why it's called research!  (boom...)    

[tomjuan]

Thanks for your warnings. SWIM tried this, and when he did it it worked well.

He filled a glass saucepan about half full of ammonia, and slowly added small portions of muriatic acid until pH paper indicated the solution was slightly acidic. Then he added a little more ammonia until pH paper indicated a neutral solution. Then he boiled of the water (at a simmer) until the crystals began to form. Then he reduced the heat until the water was almost gone, removed the crystals and let them air dry. He's not sure at all though whether he needs to recrystallize them . . .

[Rhodium]

If they are white, no need to recrystallize, if they aren't, recrystallize from boiling methanol/ethanol/IPA.

BTW, what is your intended use for the ammonium chloride?

[tomjuan]

Well, of course, MY reason for making ammonium chloride was purely educational. But someone more scrupulous than me might want to react it with formaldehyde to come up with not-so-easy-to-get methylamine for the gingard meth synth you just translated, or for an MDMA synthesis, or even (eventually) to convert tropinone to 2-carbomethoxytropinone. Let's just say this person's interests might be very diversified.

Actually, SWIM is most curious about a particular anaolg of cocaine, 2-carbomethoxy-fluorophenyl-tropane. He heard it was 60 times more potent than cocaine. It's been a while since his last chemistry lab though, and references for it seem scarce, so he has a lot of brushing up to do before tackling that route.

[Rhodium]

There is no need for recrystallization if the intended use is methylamine preparation.

[tomjuan]

okay, cool. Thanks for all your help.

[Osmium]

I'm pretty sure for methylamine manufacture NH4Cl is not needed. Certain fertilizers containing ammonium nitrate or ammonium sulfate should work too, although you will end up with methylamine nitrate/sulfate.

[goiterjoe]

In certain areas it's hard to find fertilizers that contain pure ammonium nitrate and sulfate due to their use in the past for manufacturing explosives.   Then again, you also have areas that don't sell non sudsy ammonia due to it's use for making freebase cocaine.  Go figure. 
Drunk driving, that's what I like to do,
I like drunk driving with you.

[Osmium]

Amoonium sulfate doesn't make very powerful explosives  
so it should be available everywhere.

[Chromic]

Rhodium, if you need to recrystallise, you should recrystallise ammonium chloride from water, as all of the impurities will be water soluble. Vogel mentions this for recovering AmCl from the AmCl/HCHO technique.

[goiterjoe]

I didn't think Ammonium Sulfate made that good of a fertilizer either due to it's lower nitrogen content.  My family buys about 6000 lbs. of fertilizer every year for out pastures, along with about 60-70 tons of lime, and it's always ammonium nitrate(mixed with a some of potash and phosphate).  I've never heard of Lebanon or Southern States selling Ammonium Sulfate.  But when I go into town to walmart and lowes, I always see small bags of fertilizer that either doesn't list the active ingredients, or have excessive ammounts of phosphates added. Never pure ammonium nitrate though.  Maybe it's just the area.  
Drunk driving, that's what I like to do,
I like drunk driving with you.

[Ghost_Of_BT]

Some brands of disposable 'cold packs' (used for injuries) contain pure ammonium nitrate.
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