Whenever I have made smoke mix I have used lab grade Potassium nitrate, is it possible to use agricultural grade? As I have found a good supplier that's rather cheap, will it work as well?

Thanks

Whenever I have made smoke mix I have used lab grade Potassium nitrate, is it possible to use agricultural grade? As I have found a good supplier that's rather cheap, will it work as well?

Thanks

Most probably will work just fine. Depending on impurities... that wouldn't be to hard to purify anyways. Save the lab grade for better things (like nitrations)

They're both the same quality really, the agricultural one simply isn't certified to be lab grade.
Lab grade being technical, going analytical grade or just reagens grade is a waste for both LE's and nitrations.

They're both the same quality really, the agricultural one simply isn't certified to be lab grade.
Lab grade being technical, going analytical grade or just reagens grade is a waste for both LE's and nitrations.

I presume that you have never had bad experience working with industrial kno3 in nitration.... i did and shitty yields were the the least relevant problem. I would steer people away from dirty chemicals in any nitration/esterification reacion, even if it would work for most of them.

I presume that you have never had bad experience working with industrial kno3 in nitration.... i did and shitty yields were the the least relevant problem. I would steer people away from dirty chemicals in any nitration/esterification reacion, even if it would work for most of them.

Unless your talking about yields down to .01% you wont notice SHIT!

I presume that you have never had bad experience working with industrial kno3 in nitration.... i did and shitty yields were the the least relevant problem. I would steer people away from dirty chemicals in any nitration/esterification reacion, even if it would work for most of them.
althought i would agree this topic pretains to smoke mix

and when it boild down to it .. impuritys really won't make a noticable differance

Ag. Grade always worked fine for me. The stuff I used was Scott's brand, came in 25 pound bags.

KNO3 isn't worth using for nitrations anyways. AN is WAY better with H2SO4. I've always used stump remover KNO3 and it works fine for me. Smells a bit funky (someone told me once it was because it was made in a factory that makes other fertalizers; KNO3 is supposed to be odorless), but works just fine. I treat it like it's 100% when I'm mixing comps.

Experiments with a fertiliser, labelled as "30% Kn" and "Oxidiser" but with a form of small balls (approx 2mm diameter) crushed into powder didn't work.

I have recently found a weed killer labelled as an Oxidising Agent, it seems to be almost pure Sodium Chlorate. Dry mixes of this with Sugar are promising, but the smoke created doesnt' seem to be as thick as the smoke created with Potassium Nitrate. I will try and get the name of the weed killer, as it was really cheap for a 4KG tub.

Chlorate weedkillers are generaly just 30% (top of my head)
But even at 30% you get some pretty decent smoke.

As for KNO3 ... you can always taste-test :p

I always though agri grade KNO3 was more or less the same purity as lab grade and just wasn't certified to be sold as that. I wouldn't really use KNO3 for anything that requires a clean synth in pyro there and keep it for the LE comps.

Who the hell makes nitrations/HNO3 with KNO3 in the first place ?

Ammonium nitrate is by far less messier.

I always though agri grade KNO3 was more or less the same purity as lab grade and just wasn't certified to be sold as that. I wouldn't really use KNO3 for anything that requires a clean synth in pyro there and keep it for the LE comps.

Athough that is true, I have ran into saltpeter fertilizer that were only 40-60% KNO3, rest was calcium fertilizer and ph buffers, what would happen if you dumped all that into sulfuric? i dont want to know... So I guess it depends on what you get, but if it says even >90% then im sure it would suffice for anything.

But I looked into it and your right about 100% agri KNO3 being only a certification short of lab grade.

Who the hell makes nitrations/HNO3 with KNO3 in the first place ?

Ammonium nitrate is by far less messier.

Absolutely true, but I aimed my comment at KNO3 since OP is asking if it's ok to use agri KNO3, which is surely allright for smokemix, but as far as nitrations go it depends on non-KNO3 ingrediens and the ratio of KNO3 to non-KNO3 contents. Everyone so far seems to be OK with KNO3 from agricultural supplier, so I can only assume that its just my state that has all the dirty n cut KNO3 :)

The deal with smoke mix is you want shitty OB. Dirty agricultural KNO3 would likely make more smoke for it's weight than the pure stuff.
The only time I could justify using NH4NO3 for a nitration was when I wanted really fast NC. KNO3 worked great for everything else I did.