potassium dinitramide

     Potassium dinitramide, or KDN as it is sometimes called, is one of several of the recently discovered dinitramide salts. Potassium dinitramide is being considered as an energetic oxidizer for high performance solid rockets. This compound is being considered to replace the usual rocket fuel oxidizers ammonium nitrate and ammonium perchlorate. Potassium dinitramide is more stable than its close cousin ammonium dinitramide, another rising star of the propellant field, and it lends considerable stability to mixtures containing ammonium nitrate. Dinitramides as a class of compounds are very expensive to manufacture, and so extensive research has been conducted since their discovery in 1989 to manufacture them in a more economical way.

CHEMICALS	APPARATUS
----	----
----	----
----	----
----	----
----	----

     Prepare a mixture of 45 mL of fuming nitric acid and 16 mL of 95% sulfuric acid in a small bowl. Place the bowl into a cooling bath of dry ice and dichloroethane and cool the contents to -30 C. Carefully add 0.5-1.0 g portions of finely ground potassium sulfamate to the acid mixture while stirring rapidly. The optimum rate of this reaction is to add 17 g of potassium sulfamate over a period of 20 minutes. Any longer than this and the dinitramidic acid that forms will begin to decompose. Pour the reaction mixture into a beaker containing 150 g of crushed ice and 150 mL of water. Quickly place the beaker of dinitramidic acid in a cooling bath of dry ice and dichloroethane. Immediately add an ice cold solution of potassium hydroxide at such a rate as to keep the temperature below 0 C throughout the addition. At no point should the reaction temperature rise above 0 C! Add enough potassium hydroxide solution to make the reaction mixture slightly basic. The solution will turn a yellow-green color when it is nearly neutralized. The resulting mixture is gently heated to dryness, the resulting powder should be heated in an oven to drive off all traces of moisture. Extract the dry powder with 10 mL of acetone and add the extract to 100 mL of anhydrous isopropyl alcohol. Place the extract in a shallow pan to allow it to evaporate. After some time the acetone will evaporate first causing the crystals of pure potassium dinitramide to precipitate. Filter to collect the crystals and dry them in an oven at 70 C. Final yield is almost 11 g or about 60%.

Home|Explosives|Chemical Weapons|Pharmaceuticals|Pesticides|Precursors
Lab Skills|Lab Equipment|Safety|Rogue Science|Links|What’s New|Contact Me|Disclaimer