[limpet chicken]

I am hoping to set up a small buissiness soon, producing alkali metals on a large scale, to sell, for the purposes of boosting up my rather meager income as I am currently on benefit for all the money I get.

The way I intend on doing this, is modifying a series of large fishtanks, to hold anodes at the bottom, as hopefully, if a contact I have, based in estonia pulls through, to obtain 100 liters of anhydrous pyridine, and create a large series of cells with multiple carbon anodes submerged in tanks of pyridine, saturated with caesium, rubidium, potassium and sodium salts, and may create a smaller tank for the preperation of lithium metal, and run it off a generator using cheap fuel, for the caesium, build a tap in the bottom of the tank, to enable running off of the liquid caesium as it is formed, having all the cells containing 20 liters of pyridine, to act as a solvent for electrolysis which will not attack the metal, a closed system, to prevent escape of stinky and toxic pyridine, and a hatch, to permit intake of further metal salts, and an escape valve, built into a single cathode barely touching the surface of the stinky lake of fishy death within, and performing the electrolysis using the chloride salts of the metals.

I have a few questions, and would like input as to optimisations I might make, the cathode will barely touch the pyridine, so that the evolved chlorine gas can simply be run off without reacting with the solvent, therefor minimising maintainance, and then, run off into a large drum kept full of very hot saturated KOH solution, to absorb the Cl2, and also yield large quantities of potassium chlorate as a byproduct, that can be sold for further profit, or perhaps, directly liquify the chlorine in diving gas cylinders, and either sell or use it for my own projects

I hope, to be able to output multiple-tens-of-kilograms quantities of potassium, sodium and caesium metal, and produce rubidium and lithium in any quantity to order, after a first, several kilogram test run of the production process to produce some Rb and Li to be able to satisfy any reasonably sized orders at short notice if I must do.

I would quite like others input on this, I am serious about investing in the stuff needed to create a large-scale home lab manufacture of the group one metals, and equally as serious about selling them for profit, so, if anybody has any suggestions as to how I might improve my setup, I would be very glad to hear of them.

Before anybody comes out with comments about the safety of such an enterprise, I am totally confidant in my ability to make and handle the quantities of alkali metals involved, and do it safely, safety equipment would be built in, including pressurised argon tanks, rigged to vent into the workspace at a touch of a button in case of metal escape and flood the entire lab with inert gas, whilst having a breathable oxygen tank and regulator instantly at hand.

I am qualified as a SCUBA diver, so I can purchase, and have the tanks filled no questions asked

So, lets hear it people, what do you all think?

[Mitch]

too dangerous, topic closed.

[hmx9123]

[shakes head]

Even if you got that going, and it sounds as though, given the materials, you've put a lot of thought into it and may get it running, and assuming that you had a normal business license, etc., how in the world are you going to pay the hazmat fees for that?  Commercial businesses are under a lot more restrictions than residential areas, even in the UK.  You'll have to pay so many licensing and handling fees that you'll be screwed for money real quick.  Then you'll have to carry insurance, too, which is also not cheap.  Those two things need to be addressed before you get to do any cool chemistry.