16 replies to this topic

[Arthur Brown]

As an exercise and research project this is a fine way to spend time. Make a big container and fill it with waste matter and wait while it warms up and nitrogen fixing bacteria get to work to make nitrates. Keep it topped up and moist for a few years, then start to leach out soluble matter and recrystalise the nitrates. React with wood ash which is high in potassium oxide/hydroxide (yes it's caustic!) recrystalise potassium nitrate from the leaching liquor.

Any hope of getting KNO3 cheaper than trade is vain! A 25 kilo sack should cost round £35, and 25 kilos is a huge yield for a poo pit!

[johnheritage]

i found this link on the subject, you can still have your pile, i believe from a clip i watched a while back , beer drinkers urine is a good substitute for cow urine! i mean how would one get a bucket of cow piss?

Ask a farmer.

They have slurry pits FULL of piss and shit, cooking away. It's hard to sweep it away at the speed it drops out the end of the cows.

They might want some beer for it however. They value their shit.

Although, if you're talking to a farmer, he can probably get you a metric ton of nitrate to speed things up.

{edit}I was just reading some wiki and remembered nitrate fixing bacteria. I wonder how hard it'd be to isolate those from some soil, culture them up and then dump into into a big 210l barrel of piss & others to fix the nitrates in an easily extractable crystalline state. I can do plates EZ.

Edited by johnheritage, 01 October 2010 - 05:12 AM.