Gelled alcohol, the maximum effort method

[ESpy]

Right... Rehashing this from the hobo stoves thread:

Simply take...

About 250ml of strong vinegar (pickling is good, distilled white is usually a bit weaker).
Some eggshells (about half a dozen), washed & lightly crushed. Alternatives include marble, chalk or any other source of calcium carbonate.

Add the shells to the vinegar. Watch them fizz (if you're lucky, they'll bob up & down too - better than television). When the reaction seems to stop (may take up to a week, depends on temperature), add some more shells.
Repeat until there is definitely no more reaction.

Strain the - possibly slightly pongy - mixture through a coffee filter to get rid of the eggshell fragments.

Put the solution in as wide a dish or bowl as you can scavenge. Leave this somewhere warm until all of the liquid evaporates. You will be left with more-or-less calcium acetate crystals.

Collect the crystals and crush them to a fine powder.

Mix 1/2 a film can of calcium acetate with warm water, shake until it all dissolves. Yes, all of it.

Pour the solution into a suitable tin - ideally something you can put a metal lid on.

Slowly pour in 40ml (around 2 film cans, IIRC) of meths or isopropanol. Preferably meths. The mixture should gel quite quickly.

Burn as you see fit.

Marvel at the fact that this has taken you flipping ages, and resolve to find a cheaper source of calcium acetate next time

References:
Safety data: http://www.intox.org/databank/documents/chemical/calcacet/cie671.htm
Method: http://wings.interfree.it/html/main.html

 

[Adi007]

I'm going to try powdered chalk ... the reaction should be faster.

 

[ESpy]

Remembering, of course, that French chalk is the common name for magnesium silicate...

Climbers' chalk tends to be magnesium carbonate - which might well work, as the magnesium & the calcium are in the same group.

 

[Andy]

i've just got my egg shells in the viniger. I forgot to wash them but hey

 

[Roving Rich]

Well done Peter :super: :You_Rock_
What is Calcium acetate used for and can I buy it at the chemist?
Thanks for the post
Rich

 

[Stew]

What is Calcium acetate used for...

Erm,

Burn as you see fit.

 

[Adi007]

You might be able to buy it at a chemist of health food shop ... it is one of those "vogue" supplements - but i would imagine that would be mucho expensive.

Calcium acetate is also known as E263 and is used as a preservative and acidity regulator.

Well done Peter :super: :You_Rock_
What is Calcium acetate used for and can I buy it at the chemist?
Thanks for the post
Rich

 

[ESpy]

Besides, this method is far, far sillier :shock:

 

[Andy]

though if you buy the chemical you could make more gelled alcohol as it takes a lot of finiger to make 40ml of alcohol gell

 

[ESpy]

Strangely, the point is not so much how it could be easier, more that you know *how* to do it. From as near to first principles as possible, If I were being more self-sufficient, the eggshells would have come from my own ducks, I'd have brewed the vinegar and distilled the alcohol myself.

Frankly, getting a fire going with a blowtorch is easier - but knowing how to light one with flint and steel is kinda satisfying, isn't it?

 

[Andy]

I've messed mine up. i decided to speed up the evaperating process but have been left with a very odd thing that didn't gell

 

[ESpy]

That was fast! Full reaction on the eggshells?

Any chance you heated it > 160C? It decomposes after that, you know...

 

[Andy]

there is a very high chance it got heated above 160. i got more practice with my tin stove and little twigs so it was over a roaring fire. i have loads move viniger and shells though so im ok

 

[treelaw45]

I also used this method to disolve a rock of sand and shels from the beack and exposed the fossilized remains of a coral fossil. It was green and you can see the rings as it grew like a tree. it is a small peice but branches with litte holes in the outside and would have spead to a fan shape that had broken away.

treelaw45