Saltpetre (KNO3) in Toothpaste

Son_of_Belial

OK, I have been trying to get a hold of some saltpetre as a recipe I found on bordbia's website here calls for the stuff. Now, it's difficult to get because certain irresponsible people decided to use it in explosive making back in the day. Pharmacies and all don't stock it, contrary to what bordbia say, and the more traditional methods involving earth, ashes and rotting vegetation are just too time consuming. However, I noticed that it is up there in the main ingredients of toothpaste (the kind for sensitive teeth e.g. Sensodyne). Can any of you good folks instruct me in a safe and reasonable foolproof method of extracting the required 12g of the stuff from toothpaste? I'm not sure that saltpetre qualifies as a dangerous chemical as such, so I'm not sure if I'm going against the charter on this one... Please help!!

ApeXaviour

I'd say that's pretty difficult tbh given the amount of ingredients in toothpaste.

Just buy it online. e.g.:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000GCS054/002-1848960-5405655?SubscriptionId=0GKY5T9AP29X0E3X4XG2

Son_of_Belial

Yeah, I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this. There has to be some way of extracting it though by some method. I know you can get it on Amazon or even eBay. OK, well for those boffins among you, if you wanted to extract KNO3 from toothpaste, and get ≥90% purity, how would you do it, suggest I do it?

SOL

eh, if you want it for a recipe you wouldn't want if greater than 90% pure you'd need near 100% with specified impurities as anything else would probably ruin the taste. Also given the other items in toothpaste, (flouride salt for one which would probably stay with salt petre) this seems like a very fool hardy idea, so might I suggest that you are infact looking for it for another purpose, now I may be wrong, and if I am I am sorry, but given the probabilities and that it is not a good idea given dangers of such an attempt (explosions aside, eating some of the ingredients in toothpaste purified would be very bad for you) I suggest that this post should be locked.

mawk

if i may exercise my use of ctrl+v

Price: $3.39


... now im no geneticist.. but i think paying about €2.70 maaay be less hassle. esp since you need the saltpetre for a recipie not just to challange youself.

also im pretty sure most butchers (here in the real capitol anyway) sell spiced beef which is good AND flouride free.

im with sol

ZorbaTehZ

I've seen a few documentaries on how toothpaste is made, and iirc one of the most difficult aspects of it is getting all the ingredients to mix together properly, and therefore most of the work goes into that. With that in mind I would assume that it is very difficult to separate them.

dudara

Saltpetre is used in the spice mix for making spiced beef at Christmas. So it must be available somewhere. I just don't know where.

humbert

I'd really doubt there's much point in you looking to extract it from another compound for the purposes of flavouring. The sceptic in me is also very suspicious of the motives of Son_of_Belial but that's probably just me.