the pink color is chloric acid btw i filter mines when it cools and forms calcium chlorate so it does not eat through the paper when filtered through hot

Just a thought, but if you ever did decide to attempt this method again, it might be more practical to use a mixture of calcium hypochlorite and Potassium Chloride to accelerate decomposition. Plus, that would directly yield Potassium Chlorate, albeit subsequent purification would undoubtedly be necessary.

Tom,

Thank you very much, I am glad you enjoy my website!

It has been a while, but I recently smelt the smoke again, doing some work on Senko Hanabi - my long time obsession.

As you can no doubt see I'm quite behind with updating my site, but shortly I'll write it up along with a few other vaguely pyrotechnics related topics, like attempting to make Zinc Sulfide phosphors pyrotechnically.

Regards,

Alan

I am enjoying your website. Its a nice mixture of hard science underlying some amusing anecdotes and light hearted adventures in pyro. Keep up the good work and Stay Green.

Tom

Alan,

I eventually cleaned my glassware with dilute HCl warmed a bit.

Yeah not sure about the pink solution, would like to know what that is.

Yep sure is faster and perhaps cheaper in terms of energy use.

Regards,

Alan

I managed to remove the calcium deposits off my glassware with warm vinegar.

This method of making KClO3 is messy yes, but its MUCH faster than the electrolysis method.

Glad to see I was not the only one who got a pink mixture - I thought it was a (dangerous) contamination and almost dumped it!

Electrolysis is probably easier, but by all means give it a go. My beakers and other lab-ware mostly came from Crown Scientific.

G'day. I am going to try this method with 100% hypo from Woolworths. Where do you get your beakers?