[NickNick]

I'm doing an process that involves stibnite. Potassium nitrate is mixed with potassium carbonate in water. This I assume will convert the potassium nitrate to potassium hydroxide because of the pH of the potassium carbonate being 11. The water is added to a flask with ground stibnite and allowed to sit until an extraction occurs. Then the water is distilled out. Distillations are repeated until a blood red oil comes over.

Now my question is, how dangerous is this and what type of distillation set up should I have? Won't antimony ions be comming over with the water (hence the red color) and possibly into the air?

The distillation set up I have is a 2 liter flask in a heating mantle designed for that size, then an arm going to a graham condenser (the type with the coil being for the cold water) and then to another graham condenser (the other type with the coil being cooled by the water).

[Borek]

Potassium nitrate is mixed with potassium carbonate in water. This I assume will convert the potassium nitrate to potassium hydroxide because of the pH of the potassium carbonate being 11.

No KOH here, just hydrolized carbonate.

[NickNick]

Thanks for responding. Can you explain a little more. What happpens to the potassium nitrate? It becomes a hydrolized carbonate? Or the the potassium carbonate does? What happens to the nitrogen?