Smelling Salts

[memphisbelle]

I have found a small old glass bottle which has the remains of smelling salts in. They are " rock hard" can anyone tell me of a solution I could use to get these crystals out? Thank you. Memphisbelle

[shoota]

If it is ammonia salts (white crystals) they may be dissolved in water, ether or alcohol.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/ammonia-info.htm

[Mosaic]

If you're after keeping the crystals, tip the solution into a clean saucer and leave it to evaporate. The slower the evaporation, the larger the crystals.

[woofgang]

the bottle may be worth more with the salts left in it though.

[Peter Pedant]

.well smelling salts - are NH4 Cl

and they should all have evaporated - as in smelling salts - and shouldnt leave anything....

anyway try water firs......

[woofgang]

PP My mother had a very old bottle of smelling salts that was still partly full...not sure how long they take to evaporate, or maybe there is something else in them as well as the actual ammonia stuff?

[Ianfiat]

Ammonium chloride would not smell of anything...

[Graham-W]

However, Ammonium Carbonate does.

[Graham-W]

The Ammonium Carbonate will have broken down to Ammonia and Ammonium Bicarbonate which will be the solid left in the bottle. It should be water soluble.

[theprof]

Hmm, lots of misconceptions here. Memphisbelle, take the bottle outside and cover the crystals with either neat or brown vinegar. The gas given off will be carbon dioxide and it may seem a vigorous reaction depending on the amount of crystals present, but it will get the job done.

Peter Pedant, for well over a century, smelling salts have been made from ammonium carbonate with sometimes small traces of ammonium bicarbonate present. In years gone by this was known as salt of hartshorn, derived from the more familiar spirits of hartshorn.

Ammonium Chloride or sal ammoniac never really took off in smelling salts as it was invariably mixed with ammonium hydroxide solution, which gave it the ammonia smell. As Ianfiat has pointed out, ammonium chloride is odourless.

Graham-W, although spontaneous decomposition of ammonium carbonate is known, it does not necessarily happen in all cases. The decomposition is influenced by the degree of exposure to air.

[Graham-W]

theprof If I've got the reaction right there's no need for any oxygen or exposure to air for the spontaneous reaction to take place. I would guess that warming the bottle would speed the reaction.
Opening the bottle to reduce the Ammonia in gaseous form in the system would also progress the reaction, otherwise an equilibrium would be reached which would stop the decomposition.
(NH4)2CO3 → NH4HCO3 + NH3

[theprof]

Yes, I agree Peter Pedant. What I should have clarified was that in a normally closed system, the ingress of air would affect the rate at which carbonate is converted to the bicarbonate.

Ammonium bicarbonate, which is white, powdery and feels very dry can be easily distinguished from the sand-like crystals of ammonium carbonate. But to complicate matters further, even apparently "pure" samples of the carbonate contain a good proportion of the bicarbonate along with the carbamate.

For example, Sigma-Aldrich, a major lab chemical supplier, is only prepared to admit that their ACS reagant grade ammonium carbonate is a "variable mixture of ammonium bicarbonate and ammonium carbamate". Even higher "puriss" grades contain undeclared quantities of the carbonate and carbamate.

The rate at which these decompositions occur in or without the presence of air cannot be predicted because the quantity of the bicarbonate and carbamate present in any given sample of the carbonate cannot be ascertained with great accuracy.

It's not as straightforward as it seems at first glance.

[memphisbelle]

Thanks everyone, I have tried all your suggestions. However the crystals remain "rock hard" in the bottle. Memphisbelle.