Encyclopedia > Saltpetre

  Article Content

Potassium nitrate

Redirected from Saltpetre

Properties
General
Name Potassium nitrate
Chemical formula KNO3
Appearance White or dirty gray solid
Physical
Formula weight 101.1 amu
Melting point 607 K (334 °C)
Boiling point decomposes at 673 K (400 °C)
Density 2.1 ×103 kg/m3
Crystal structure Aragonite
Solubility 38 g in 100g water
Thermochemistry
ΔfH0gas ? kJ/mol
ΔfH0liquid -483 kJ/mol
ΔfH0solid -495 kJ/mol
S0gas, 1 bar ? J/mol·K
S0liquid, 1 bar ? J/mol·K
S0solid ? J/mol·K
Safety
Ingestion May cause GI irritation, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.
Inhalation Irritation, long term exposure may be fatal.
Skin Low hazard.
Eyes Low hazard.
More info Hazardous Chemical Database (http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/chemicals/7/6965)
SI units were used where possible. Unless otherwise stated, standard conditions were used.

Disclaimer and references

The chemical compound potassium nitrate is a naturally occurring mineral source of nitrogen. It is a nitrate with chemical formula KNO3. Its common names include saltpetre (American English saltpeter), Chilean saltpetre, and nitre. The name "saltpeter" is also applied to sodium Nitrate.

It is the oxidising component of gunpowder. Prior to the large-scale industrial fixation of nitrogen (the Haber process), a major source of saltpetre was the deposits crystallising from the drainings of dung-heaps; thereby making dung-heaps a valuable military resource.

An urban legend holds that soldiers, sailors, and other young men in institutional situations are secretly administered saltpetre in their food, especially during bootcamp, to suppress their sexual urges. It is conjectured that the troops were employing a folk etymology and replacing "salt" with "soft". The reduction in sexual urges does in fact occur, but is caused by physical exhaustion related to intense training.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Sanskrit language

... languages of India. For India, Sanskrit occupies a role similar to that of Latin in Western Europe. It was (and still is) a language of religious ritual and scholarship, ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 66.8 ms