Red Phosphorus From Matchbooks by Rhondium |
This was compiled from many sources and through trial and error was refined to what you see. It was written to be printed up and used as a reference for anyone like swim that hasn't been able to get lab grade RP. Swim's current run was scaled down using a 2 gallon bucket with 114 boxes! It took over 3/4 gallon of acetone to extract the RP. Clean up will be H2SO4/HCL, ACETONE, H2O, PREFIRE, ACETONE, H2O.
Materials - 5 Gallon Bucket - 200 Matchbook Boxes Steps <1> Rip off matchbook covers. Line up as many matchbook covers as you can cut through with tin snips or good, sharp scissors. Cut out and save all the striking strips. <2> Drill 3/4" hole in the lid of the 5 gallon bucket. Put the mud mixer through 3/4" hole in lid and into the drill. <3> Dump the 200 matchbook boxes worth of striking strips (10,000 striking strips) into the 5 gallon bucket. Pour 1.5 gallons of acetone into the bucket. Cover bucket by inserting mud mixer then snapping on the lid. <4> Mix Contents for about 5 minutes. Check to see if strips are mostly white on account of the phosphorous/glue being washed off.If not then continue mixing. <5> Take off the lid and pull out mixer. Put the strainer on the cooking pot and pour all the actone in. Pull out all strips from strainer and bucket and place on clean table or in a bowl. The strips will be covered in residual red phosphorus, so rinse them by placing the strainer on bucket and throwing a handful of strips in it. Then slowly pour some of the acetone in the cooking pot, through the straineruntil strips are clean. Empty strainer into garbage. Continue until all strips are rinsed. <6> Pour all the acetone/RP into the cooking pot. Let the RP
settle for about 15 minutes. SLOWLY pour off the acetone into your local
lake. Keep pouring as long as the acetone is pretty clear. The last
bit of acetone will be reddish colored. Filter this through a coffee
filter in the strainer. Scrape the
Cleaning Matchbook Red Phosphorus SULFURIC/HYDROCHLORIC WASH: ACETONE WASH: WATER WASH: OTHER WASHES: SCREENING: WASHING ORDER:
Prefiring Red Phosphorus REACT RP/I2: FILTER OUT RP: NOTE: - Make sure drill has a 1/2" chuck. +-----+ | | | |<---------- Drill | | +-----+ | | | ________|___<---------- Lid | < | | | | | | | <---------- Bucket | ____|____ | | | | | | | | | | <---------- Mixer | |___|___| | | | | | +---------------+ |
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