Sal ammoniac

“ Sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride, British and United States pharmacopoeia) as used in medicine is a white crystalline odourless powder having a saline taste. It is soluble in 1 in 3 of cold water and in 1 in 50 of 90% alcohol. It is incompatible with carbonates of the alkalis. The dose is 5 to 20 grs. Ammonium chloride has a different action and therapeutic use from the rest of the ammonium salts. ”

“ Sal-ammoniac + lime = chloride of lime + ammonia.
Ammonia itself is a most powerful gas, and acts rapidly upon the eyes. It has a stimulating effect upon the nerves. It is not a chemical element, being composed of three parts of hydrogen by weight to one of nitrogen, both of which elements alone are very harmless, and, the latter indeed, very necessary to human life. Ammonia is fatal to life, producing great irritation of the lungs. ”

“ These salts, or compounds, are mingled with sawdust, or some other porous substance not acted on by the gas, before being put into the purifiers; and after they become saturated with the vapour, the newly-formed hydrochlorate or sulphate (according to the salt or mixture employed) is washed out of the mass with water.
Besides the usual sources of SAL AMMONIAC (and the other ammonia-salts of commerce) it has been proposed to obtain it from guano, peat, shale, &c., as noticed under Sesquicarbonate of Ammonia (suprà) ”

“ In making water of ammonia on the great scale, a cast iron still should be preferred, and equal weights of quicklime and sal ammoniac should be brought to the consistence of a pap, with water, before the heat is applied. In this case, a refrigeratory worm or globe should be interposed between the adopter tube of the capital of the still and the bottles of Woulfe’s apparatus. The muriate of lime, or chloride of calcium, which is left in the still when the whole ammonia is expelled, is of no value. ”

“ The abundant formation of ammonia from decaying animal matter is evident to everyone, and depends upon the presence of moisture to a great extent. Chloride of ammonia is called sal-ammoniac, and the carbonate of ammonia crystallizes from the alkaline liquid produced by the distillation of certain animal matter. The compounds of ammonia are easily recognized by a certain sharp taste. ”

“ Sal armoniak, s. sal ammoniac, G 798, 824. Lat. sal armeniacum, Armenian salt. 'Sal ammoniac, chloride of ammonium, a salt of a sharp, acrid taste; ... also called hydrochlorate or muriate of ammonia'; Webster. The word armoniac certainly answers to the Lat. Armeniacum in the old treatises. Yet the right spelling is, perhaps, ammoniac; ἀμμωνιακόν, τό, sal ammoniac, rock-salt, Dioscorides' ”

“ The dung of black cattle, horses, sheep, goats, &c., which contains sal ammoniac ready formed, is collected during the first four months of the year, when the animals feed on the spring grass, a kind of clover. It is dried, and sold to the common people as fuel. The soot from this fuel is carefully collected and sold to the sal ammoniac makers, who work only during the months of March and April, for it is only at that season of the year that the dung is fit for their purpose. ”

“ Ammonia.—If the sal ammoniac of the shops be mixed with quicklime, a powerful odour is immediately perceived, and an invisible gas is given off which strongly affects the eyes. This gas is ammonia. Water dissolves or absorbs it in very large quantity, and this solution forms the common hartshorn of the shops. The white solid smelling-salts of the shops are a compound of ammonia with carbonic acid,—a solid formed by the union of two gases. ”

“ Into a large tubulated glass retort put a small quantity of Sal Ammoniac in powder: set your retort in a furnace, and lute on a large ballon, as in the distillation of the smoaking Acids of Nitre and Sea-salt. Through the hole in your retort pour a quantity of Oil of Vitriol, or Spirit of Nitre, equal in weight to your Sal Ammoniac. An effervescence will instantly follow. The mixture will swell, and discharge white vapours, which will come over into the receiver. ”

“ The reason why the liquor that rises first contains a great deal more Volatile Salt than the other, in so much that it coagulates and becomes solid, is because the Volatile Salt rises in distillation much more easily than water.
In whatever manner the Volatile Spirit or Salt be distilled from Sal Ammoniac, by means of a Fixed Alkali, we always find at the bottom of the retort, or cucurbit, when the operation is finished, a new Neutral Salt compounded of the Acid of the Sal Ammoniac, and of the Alkali used in the distillation. ”

“ In the action which is assumed to accompany the passage of current in this cell, the sal ammoniac is decomposed, the chlorine leaving the ammonia to unite with an atom of the zinc plate, forming chloride of zinc and setting free ammonia and hydrogen. The ammonia is immediately dissolved in the water of the cell, and the hydrogen enters the porous cup and would speedily polarize the cell by adhering to the carbon plate but for the fact that it encounters the peroxide of manganese. ”

“ Ammonia is found in small quantities as the carbonate in the atmosphere, being produced from the putrefaction of nitrogenous animal and vegetable matter; ammonium salts are also found in small quantities in rain-water, whilst ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac) and ammonium sulphate are found in volcanic districts; and crystals of ammonium bicarbonate have been found in Patagonian guano. Ammonium salts too are found distributed through all fertile soil, in sea-water, and in most plant and animal liquids, and also in urine. ”

“ Even its solution, by long boiling, becomes acid from loss of ammonia. The anhydrous salt does not exist.
Uses, &c. Pure sulphate of ammonia is diuretic, aperient, resolvent, and stimulant.—Dose, 10 to 30 gr. It is now seldom employed in medicine. The crude sulphate is principally used in the preparation of sal ammoniac and sesquicarbonate of ammonia, and for manure. “A mixture of 10% of this sulphate with 20% of bone-dust, some gypsum, and farm-yard manure, forms a very fertilising compost, applicable to a great variety of soils” (Ure) ”

“ Ammonia gas is composed by weight of 82·53 azote and 17·47 hydrogen in 100 parts. It is obtained by mixing muriate of ammonia, commonly called sal ammoniac, with quicklime, in a retort or still, applying a moderate heat, and receiving the gas either over mercury for chemical experiments, or in water to make liquid ammonia for the purposes of medicine and the arts. Woulfe’s apparatus is commonly employed for this condensation.
Ammonia is generated in a great many operations, and especially in the decomposition of many organic substances, by fire or fermentation. ”

“ Wanting, however, to procure this air in greater quantities, and this method being rather expensive, it occurred to me that alkaline air might probably be procured, with the most ease and convenience, from the original materials, mixed in the same proportions that chemists had found by experience to answer the best for the production of the volatile spirit of sal ammoniac. Accordingly I mixed one-fourth of pounded sal ammoniac with three-fourths of slaked lime; and filling a phial with the mixture, I presently found it completely answered my purpose. ”

“ Substitute for the chlorine of the last experiment a bottle of carbonic or hydrochloric acid gas; in either case the gases disappear, and a light white powder settles on the sides of the bottles, being the carbonate or hydrochlorate of ammonia, according to the acid used.
Carbonate of ammonia is the substance sold for “smelling salts;” and the hydrochlorate, or muriate of ammonia, is the salt called “sal ammoniac,” whence the alkaline gas was first obtained, and from which it got its name of ammonia. ”

“ However, on the addition of an alkali (for instance, caustic lime, potash, or soda) , they evolve ammonia gas, especially when heated. The presence of ammonia may be made visible by introducing a substance moistened with strong hydrochloric acid into its neighbourhood. A white cloud, or visible white vapour, then makes its appearance. This depends on the fact that both ammonia and hydrochloric acid are volatile, and on coming into contact with each other produce solid sal-ammoniac, NH4Cl, which forms a cloud. ”

“ The gas-conducting tube leading from the desiccating apparatus is introduced into a mercury bath, if dry gaseous ammonia be required, because water cannot be employed in collecting ammonia gas. Ammonia was first obtained in this dry state by Priestley, and its composition was investigated by Berthollet at the end of the last century. Oxide of lead mixed with sal-ammoniac (Isambert) evolves ammonia with still greater ease than lime. The cause and process of the decomposition are almost the same, 2PbO + 2NH4Cl = Pb2OCl2 + H2O + 2NH3. ”

“ The sal ammoniac of commerce is found to be sufficiently pure for all its ordinary applications in the arts; but when wanted of greater purity, it is broken into pieces, and resublimed from an earthenware vessel into a large receiver of earthenware or glass. ”

“ Equal parts of sal ammoniac and nitre are then to be finely powdered, and mixed together, and subsequently added to the Glauber's salts, stirring the powders well together; after which adding water sufficient to dissolve the salts, a degree of cold will be produced, frequently below Zero of Fahrenheit. But Mr. Walker states, that nitrate of ammonia, phosphate of soda, and diluted nitric acid, will on the instant produce a reduction of temperature amounting to 80 degrees. ”

“ Pure ammonia is best prepared by heating equal parts of quicklime and powdered sal-ammoniac in a retort, and conducting the generated gas into water which dissolves it with avidity, one quart of water dissolving more than seven hundred quarts of ammonia gas. ”

“ This Acid effervesces with fixed and volatile Alkalis, and therewith forms Neutral Salts; but very different from Sea-salt, and from Sal Ammoniac. That which has a fixed Alkali for its basis does not crackle when thrown on burning coals; but swells and vitrifies like Borax. That which has a volatile Alkali for its basis shoots into long pointed crystals; and, being urged by fire in a retort, lets go its volatile alkali, [Pg 210] a vitrified matter remaining behind. This Salt is like that above-mentioned, as obtained from urine and yielding Phosphorus. ”

“ It is occasionally found in a state of powder, sometimes in a massive form, and sometimes in very irregularly shaped crystals, the primitive form of which is an octohedron (Pl II, Fig. 5) . It is, however, more frequently an artificial production from the soot of burned animal matter.
The name of sal-ammoniac was acquired by this substance from its having been found by the ancients in great abundance amongst sand near the temple of Jupiter Ammon, in Africa. It is at present found in Persia; and, accompanying sulphur, amongst volcanic matter near Mount Vesuvius. ”

“ They were first prepared by John Rhodolphus Glauber, a celebrated chemist of the 17th century; and are of considerable use in medicine as cooling purgatives, when taken in doses from six to twelve drams: they also prove excellent aperients in various chronical disorders, such as habitual costiveness, for which small doses of one dram of this salt, with two scruples of cream of tartar, and one scruple of sal-ammoniac dissolved in water, may be given with advantage, three or four times a day. ”

“ This is by far the most efficacious freezing mixture that can be made without the use of ice or acids. But, unfortunately, it has an almost insuperable objection, that the nitrate of ammonium is decomposed by the soda, and cannot be recovered by evaporation; this raises the expense to so great a height, that the plan is practically useless.
All is Not Gold that Glitters.
2153. Sal Ammoniac as a Freezing Mixture
If the ordinary sal ammoniac of the shops is used, it will be found both difficult to powder, and expensive ”

“ It requires considerable habitude or terrible experience in the open air to find any degree of comfort in such abodes. The Augean stables or the stump-tail cow-sheds appear like Paradise in comparison.”— (“Ice-Pack and Tundra,” Gilder, New York, 1883, p. 105.)
PREPARATION OF SAL AMMONIAC, PHOSPHORUS, SOLUTION OF INDIGO.
Diderot and D’Alembert say that the sal ammoniac of the ancients was prepared with the urine of camels; that phosphorus, as then manufactured in England, was made with human urine, as was also saltpetre.— (Encyclopædia, Geneva, 1789, article “Urine.”) ”

“ Take sal ammoniack half an ounce, camphire one ounce, aquavita two ounces, put them in an earthen pot, in the fashion of a chamber pot, but something narrow upon the top, then set fire to it, and the room will seem to them that are in to be all on fire: nay, themselves will flap their hair and cloaths, thinking they are all on fire, when there is nobody hurt unless it be with fright. ”

“ It is oftenest mentioned by the physicians, because it was the purest table salt that could then be procured. On that account it has been praised by Scribonius Largus, who lived in the first century, and by Aetius who lived in the fifth, as well as by Avicenna, Serapion, and others. I have however not yet met with it in the writings of Hippocrates or Galen. In the works of the Greek agriculturists it occurs in a recipe for the preparation of a cement employed to close up wine vessels980. According to a recipe of Apicius, in his book on cookery, sal-ammoniacus was to be roasted. ”

“ The ammonia exists in the state of neutral carbonate in the product of the a formula, but in the caustic state in those of the others.—Dose, 1⁄2 to 1 fl. dr., in water or, any bland liquid; as a diffusible stimulant and antacid, in debility, low spirits, dyspepsia, heartburn, flatulent colic, hysteria, &c. The spirit of sal volatile of the shops is generally a spurious compound of little more than half the above strength. ”