Lye 1

I attempted to make lye today, with questionable results.

I mixed 1/2 mol of quicklime in water, and got the expected:

1. Sizzling reaction
2. Exothermic reaction heated water
3. Flocculant result

I then added 1/2 mol of slightly suspect potash (it's brown rather than white, see potash discussion) and got pretty much what I expected: a chalk precipitate and a slightly brownish liquid. I had used a lot of water, so the boil-down took forever. I stopped when I had maybe twice as much fluid as it would take to dissolve a half mole of lye, and transferred the liquid to another vessel, figuring that the precipitates so far would be something other than lye. Boiling the remainder dry gave a dark brown paste, then powder. It was highly alkaline.

Quicklime 2

This time around it was 50g of chalk in and a couple hours on "high" in the kiln. 28g of lime came out. Since the ratio of molecular weights of calcium carbonate to calcium oxide is 100:56, that is dead on correct. Huzzah.

Day 14: in a clay pot with a loose lid, it appears to have reverted completely.

Quicklime 1

I gathered 60g of chalk (more or less pure, dry calcium carbonate)
I put it in the kiln (cone 05) for 8 hrs at top temp

Results

• The result weighed 34g
• That is almost exactly the 33.6g we expected
• The remainder may be unconverted chalk, absorbed water, or reabsorbed CO2