Ammonio and Water Solution

[RayCornett]

I made my first batch of 10:1 ammonia and water pen solution the other day. This city has really good water(lots of local exotic fish collectors and such swear by it).The next day I noticed a white sediment in the bottom of the jar and when I shake it the solution becomes hazy. The water is good, the ammonia is pure ammonia, and the jar was freshly washed and rinsed very well.

Anyone ever experience this or know what might be going on?

[RayCornett]

Gah! I hate not being able to fix typos in posting headers or being able to delete them to start over.

[Brisboy]

"Ammonio", nice. As to your question, I've not had that problem but maybe I've just not been observant enough.

I would expect it with my solution but that's because I use cloudy ammonia usually.

[Dreck]

Ray, my best guess would be impurities in the water. While the water there may be healthy or full of vitamins & minerals, your pen doesn't need these things. I recommend trying distilled water with the ammonia, & see if that solves the issue.

[LagNut]

I use distilled water for this, and ammonia without scent.

I do recall the water getting cloudy when mopping with ammonia, but have not seen a precipitate. That would not be useful for washing floors.

Something sounds amiss. Is it repeatable?

[RayCornett]

I did toss it out and this time started with water from a 3 gallon jug I filled at the local water dispenser which also the fish collectors say is good due to their tests. I will see if that changes things.

Lugnut, sure it is repeatable. I would just have to make the mix with tap water again.

[mhosea]

He means if you repeat those steps, does the same thing happen again. You have to actually do it to know. A scientific approach would require you to repeat it at least once to discount the possibility that it was caused by the turd of a passing gnat or some other unrealized happening. ;)

[RayCornett]

I get it now. I will give it a shot and see if it happens again.

[Wile E Coyote]

Unless you are planning to keep fish in your pens, I'd ignore the recommendations of fish collectors. Pens don't need salts and/or minerals in their water. If you can get your hands on deionized water that's your best bet, otherwise distilled is better for pens than any tap or filtered water.

[RayCornett]

I also made a batch with tap again. Its been an hour and I can see a slight sediment at the bottom of the one with tap water but the batch made with the water from the filtered dispenser is still clear. I see one speck of something floating around but that's it and I think whatever was floating was a bubble.

[RayCornett]

The one with filtered water ended up with the same problem but not as bad. Instead of tossing it down the drain I ran it all through a funnel with a folded up paper towel in it. If this does not do the trick I will have to get some distilled water. I thought I had coffee filters but forgot I used them all up and switched to a mesh filter.

[Jon Szanto]

Just get distilled water. The amount of money and time saved is completely not worth it. When you want to be certain of what you are doing - say, for instance, flushing vintage pens - it really is in your best interest to do the maximum you can to maintain top standards.

I've seen fish tanks with crap in them. Enough said.

[Farmboy]

Highly basic solutions will dissolve silica from a solid surface resulting in a fine silt.

Distilled water rarely stays pure once exposed to atmosphere.

[Chrissy]

Try using some melted ice that appears in your freezer or fridge and see if there is any precipitation in that

[mrcharlie]

In the US, you can get a gallon of distilled water from a grocery store for about $1. Why waste time with anything else? Unless you are having fun or satisfying your intellectual curiosity seeing what water source gives the least sediment, etc, then have fun.

All municipal tap waters, spring waters, well waters, etc have various minerals and impurities dissolved in them. They might be "pure" from poisons and biological contaminants, but they will still have ions that are not h2o. Some of them will react with ammonia. Distilled water will be much closer to pure water.

PS. If you are trying to make a 1% ammonia solution from 10% household ammonia, you want a 9:1 mix, not 10:1. The difference probably doesn't matter much though.

[RayCornett]

I ended up filtering it through a folded up paper towel in a funnel yesterday and as of right now at 10 am the solution is crystal clear with nothing on the bottom of the jar. I will use distilled from now on but when I did this I really wasn't able to leave the house and I wanted to make a batch. I will be giving it a shot tonight with a couple pens.

[mrcharlie]

If you figured out a filter keeps it from precipitating:

that is cool, and my time wasting comment is clearly wrong.
that is probably good enough.

Probably a coffee filter would do the same thing, if you are someone who has those.

[RayCornett]

My goal was to use a coffee filter but I didn't have any. I forgot I had used the last one before switching to a mesh filter. I still have not used any because I haven't used all the ink in any of my inked pens yet and it has been nearly a week that it has been sitting on my shelf untouched and it has nothing on the bottom. It s crystal clear.


If you figured out a filter keeps it from precipitating:

that is cool, and my time wasting comment is clearly wrong.
that is probably good enough.

Probably a coffee filter would do the same thing, if you are someone who has those.