[AR] Re: H2O2 from Sodium Carbonate Peroxide (Sodium Percarbonate)
- From: Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:30:55 +0100
On 02/09/16 20:18, qbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
UK regulations say the following...
"In summary, the Regulation’s marketing restrictions are limited to
purchases, possession and use by the general public only.
There are no restrictions on sales or use to/by professional users, or
industry. The Regulation identifies concentration thresholds for seven
specific chemicals which include Hydrogen peroxide. Above these
thresholds, 12% for Hydrogen Peroxide, the baseline position of the
Regulation is a ban on sales to the public. However, Member States
(MS) can derogate from a full ban through the use of a licence
scheme and those States who have an existing registration scheme
can keep it, provided it meets a number of criteria."
So essentially, even if you could get the Sodium Percarbonate and
managed to get a good base stock, if caught with it you'd be
off to the Hoosegow.
However a legitimate research project can acquire a licence to
purchase materials on the regulated list.
Yep. A license costs £35 for 3 years, and they are not that difficult to
get - I have one, and I have an "interesting" history with the Police
and Security services here in the UK.
I applied, two policemen came round to chat. I showed them some rocketry
paperwork and where I was storing chemicals (I applied just as the need
came in). They got a bit good-cop bad-cop interrogative, but I think
that was just because they were coppers at heart - I don't think they
really knew much about it either.
Anyway it became obvious that I am not a terrorist or mad bomber, my
reasons for wanting chemicals are legitimate, and my safety and storage
arrangements are sensible, so a week or so later the Home Office issued
me a "Poisons and Explosives Precursors Licence" :)
BTW1 to get peroxide from sodium percarbonate you can use an organic
solvent as Henry suggested (with careful choice of solvent and
concentration control), but you would normally use the solution rather
than separating the peroxide and the solvent.
The method is neither particularly efficient nor easy/safe/good, nor is
it in any way economical. You wouldn't use it unless you wanted very
anhydrous peroxide, and possibly not even then; I'd expect a molecular
sieve would be better nowadays, but I am a little out-of-date here.
Just dissolving it in water will of course give a solution of peroxide
and sodium carbonate in water - the peroxide will dissociate if you
leave it for any length of time. Adding eg hydrochloric acid will give a
solution of peroxide in salty water - I think you could probably distil
that, though I am not 100% sure. But it would be expensive.
BTW2 it is possible to make peroxide explosives with sodium
percarbonate, without extracting the peroxide - but as this is a
rocketry forum I will not go into that here.
<rant>
Of course you can also make explosives with 12% peroxide... it isn't
very hard, though the yields are lower than with higher concentrations
they are still potentially useful.
It's an EU law, not a UK law, so it applies all over the EU. About 5
years ago the EU sent me the proposal for comment[1], I told them it was
nuts - you can't easily make useful explosives with 12% nitric acid, but
you are only allowed 3% nitric acid, You can make useful explosives with
6% peroxide, yet you are allowed 12% peroxide.
There are more stupidities, like you can't have more than 40% sodium
chlorate or perchlorate, or potassium chlorate or perchlorate - but you
can have a mixture of 40% NaClO4, 40% NaClO3 and 20% KClO4. You can have
100% NH4ClO4, or 100% NH4NO3.
Nuts.
[1] at some point proposed laws are usually sent out for public comment
to potentially interested parties, in theory so that they can be changed
if eg the proposers didn't think of something, got attitudes, statistics
or science wrong, etc - in practice, I have never seen a publicly
suggested change of any sort actually happen for an EU proposal, and
almost never for a UK proposal.
I only see a few proposals a year though, so maybe it happens - but I
get the distinct impression that public consultations are used to
determine the level and type of opposition that a proposal is likely to
face, rather than to improve the suggestion - after all, if it can be
improved then it could be suggested that the person proposing it has
made a mistake...
</rant>
-- Peter Fairbrother
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