Saltpeter Chilean

Gr. iodes, violet) Discovered by Courtois in 1811, Iodine, a halogen, occurs sparingly in the form of iodides in sea water from which it is assimilated by seaweeds, in Chilean saltpeter and nitrate-bearing earth, known as caliche in brines from old sea deposits, and in brackish waters from oil and salt wells. 

Chilean saltpeter Chilies Chill powder Chiks... 

Sodium nitrate nitrate [7631-99-4] NaNO, is found in naturally occurring deposits associated with sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, potassium chloride, potassium nitrate, magnesium chloride, and other salts. Accumulations of sodium nitrate have been reported in several countries, but the only ones being commercially exploited are the unique nitrate-rich deposits in Chile, South America. Natural sodium nitrate is also referred to as Chilean saltpeter or Chilean nitrate. 

Eng 20, 470-477 (1919) (Description of ammonia oxidation process beginning with Kuhl-mann s method of 1839 and ending with the cyanamide process at Muscle Shoals) 7) C.L. Parsons, 1EC 11,541 (1919) (Oxidation of ammonia to nitric acid as well as the prepn of nitric acid from Chile saltpeter) 8) F.C. Zeis-berg, ChemMetEng 24, 443-45 (1921) (Manuf of nitric acid from Chilean saltpeter brief description) 9) G.B. Taylor, IEC 26,1217-19 (1922) (Some economic aspects of ammonia oxidation) 10) Ministry of Munitions, Manufacture of Nitric Acid from Nitre and Sulfuric Acid , London (1922) (Book No 7 of Technical Records of Explosives Supply, 1915—1919)... 

Bosch also helped develop Haber s process into an industrial process. In 1913, Haber and Bosch opened an ammonia manufacturing plant in Germany. A year later, World War I started. Saltpeter had another use besides making fertilizer. It was also necessary to make nitric acid that was used to make explosives. When the war started, the British Navy quickly cut off Germany s supply of Chilean saltpeter. If not for the Haber process, some historians estimate that Germany would have run out of nitrates to make explosives by 1916. The war lasted another two years, however, because Germany did not need to rely on outside sources of nitrates for fertilizers or explosives. 

Phase behavior 1n concentrated aqueous electrolyte systems is of interest for a variety of applications such as separation processes for complex salts, hydrometal 1urgical extraction of metals, interpretation of geological data and development of high energy density batteries. Our interest in developing simple thermodynamic correlations for concentrated salt systems was motivated by the need to interpret the complex solid-liquid equilibria which occur in the extraction of sodium nitrate from complex salt mixtures which occur in Northern Chile (Chilean saltpeter). However, we believe the thermodynamic approach can also be applied to other areas of technological interest. 

Chilean saltpeter [potassium nitrate (KNOj)] has a number of impurities, including sodium and calcium iodate. Iodine is separated from the impurities and, after being treated chemically, finally produces diatomic iodine. Today, iodine is mostly recovered from sodium iodate (NalO ) and sodium periodate (NalO ) obtained from Chile and Bohvia. 

Charcoal is made from wood ashes, sulfur is mined, and potassium nitrate (called Chilean saltpeter) was mined from dry cliffs on the coast of Chile, where fish-eating seabirds had their nests and restroom facilities. Over many centuries, this source accumulated in layers mary feet thick, and this was adequate for all nitrate needs until the end of the nineteenth century when deposits began to deplete faster than birds could replenish them and transportation and purification (odor is just part of the problem) kept costs high-... 

The Germans need to supplant Chilean saltpeter supply, which could be cut off by enemy blockades, led to the search for methods to synthesize nitrates. The reaction required a supply of ammonia, which was economically synthesized by Fritz Haber (1868—1934) before World War I (see Ammonia). Ammonia could then be converted to nitric acid through the Ostwald process and then nitric acid can be reacted with bases to produce nitrates (see Nitric Acid) KOH + HNO 4 - KNO. + HO... 

Chilean saltpeter, NaNOs. was the first of the chemical nitrogenous fertilizers. Ammonium sulfate. (NRshSO-t. made available as a byproduct of coal-gas produced in large quantities prior to wide use of natural gas. 

MIL-S-16917A, Amendment 2,Feb 1956. Large quantities of this material were formerly obtd as a by-product in the manuf of nitric acid from Chilean saltpeter(sodium nitrate) ... 

Iodine is produced by similar methods, namely, oxidation of the iodide anion from brines by chlorine. However, iodine is also produced in a reductive process by reacting NalOs, extracted from the natural source of Chilean saltpeter, with sodium hydrogen snffite. The pentavalent iodine is reduced to iodide (equations), which is then treated and oxidized with a sufficient amonnt of the mother liquor to liberate elemental iodine (equation 5). In contrast to chlorine and bromine, which have large industrial uses, iodine has no predominant commercial use. 

Niter deposits [including KNO3, Chilean saltpeter, NaN03, and wall saltpeter, Ca(N03)2] represent localized reservoirs of terrestrial nitrogen. Their entry into the biogeochemical cycle is catalysed by Man, but a role for organisms in their formation, while possible (Breger, 1911), has yet to be proven. 

The inorganic raw material supply comes mostly from mining. The shortage or exhaustion of one material requires the substitution of another. Chilean saltpeter replaced niter-bed saltpeter. The exhaustion of naturally occurring bauxite has forced U.S. aluminum companies to seek bauxite ores elsewhere— in Jamaica, Venezuela, and Australia. 

Sodium cyanide (NaCN) is poisonous (like all cyanides) and is used in the steel industry. Sodium nitrate (NaN03) is found in deposits of Chilean saltpeter and is used in fertilizers and explosives. Sodium sulfate can be an anhydrous substance (as Na2S04) or a hydrate (as in Na2S04 x 10H2O). In the latter case it is known as Glauber s salt. 

The problem has, however, yet another aspect at the end of the last century, European and North American civilization realized that the supply of Chilean saltpeter would eventually come to an end, and that this would probably lead to famine. Search for a new source for nitrogenous fertilizers was a challenge for the chemists. That problem was solved shortly before the first world war by Haber and Bosch in Germany. The Haber-Bosch process was indeed extremely welcome, but even look-... 

See Alfredo Hartwig, Die Bedeutung eines Stickstojfmonopolsfur Deutschland (Berlin, 1915), 34ff. Chile and the importers of Chilean saltpeter were probably behind this publication. 

Sodium is the most abundant of the alkali metals and is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth s crust, with an abundance of roughly 2.36 wt.%. Owing to its high chemical reactivity with water and, to a lesser extent, with air, sodium metal never occurs free in nature however, the element is ubiquitous and occurs naturally in a wide range of compounds. Sodium chloride is the most common compound of sodium and is dissolved either in seawater or in the crystalline form of halite or rock salt [NaCl, cubic]. However, it is widely present in numerous complex silicates such as feldspars and micas and other nonsilicate minerals such as cryolite [NajAlF, monoclinic], natronite or soda ash [Na COj, mono-clonic], borax [Na B O,. lOH O, monoclinic], sodium hydroxide or caustic soda [NaOH], Chilean saltpeter, and nitratite or soda niter [NaNOj, rhombohedral]. Obviously, the chief ore is the sodium chloride recovered from either brines or rock salt ore deposits. There are... 

Like those of so many other elements we have discussed, nitrogen compounds were well-known long before the free element was isolated. Ammonium salts such as sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) have been characterized since the fifth century B.C. aquafortis (nitric acid) was described in the thirteenth century and by the end of the sixteenth century was in high demand for the separation of silver and gold. Saltpeter, or niter (potassium nitrate), and Chilean saltpeter (sodium nitrate) have long been prized as fertilizers and for use in gunpowder. 

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