Hi and welcome to Tecomogamic! On this special episode I will be discussing an extraction technique that has been practiced for millennia. This process was something ancient peoples discovered more than a thousand years ago and is one of the most fundamental basics of modern chemistry. Welcome to the world of alchemists, wizards, witches and chemists.

If you had the chance to travel back in time to the dark ages you might be fortunate enough to stumble upon someone that we would today consider an alchemist, wizard, witch or Druid. Make no mistake, these people were the odd ones out. They collected knowledge as a hobby and practiced their newly discovered arts in their spare time. As a result of this experimental attitude these strange ones discovered and lost vast quantities of knowledge. One such snippet of knowledge is as follows.
Did you know that you can extract a valuable compound from wood ash? This compound has many valuable uses. First and foremost it is an important ingredient in the making of Castile soap or any soap for that matter. It can also be used for extracting nitrates from bat guano that can than be used in the manufacturing of gun powder. This compound can also be used for making a flux for glazes on ceramics and for lowering the melting point of ores to extract metals.
This compound which can be extracted from wood ash is called potassium carbonate also known as potash.
Welcome to the foundations of modern chemistry.
Listen and I will tell you how to obtain this compound.
The first step you are going to want to do is to collect some hard wood. The harder the wood the better. Soft woods such as pine will also work but bear in mind that you will retrieve lower quantities of Potassium Carbonate from wood ash if you choose to use soft woods.
Once you have collected a good quantity of wood you will need to get a good hearty fire going. All the wood needs to be consumed in the fire leaving only charcoal and fine white wood ash. The charcoal can be placed to the side and used for other purposes such as water filtering or used as a primary ingredient in the gunpowder itself. The white ash should be collected by screening the charcoal from the ash. A window screen will do the trick. Simply place the screen on the opening of a bucket, now pour the entire fire contents over the screen. Shake the screen to filter the ash into the bucket below.
Now that you have separated the fine white powder from the fires’ remains it is time to fill the bucket with water. Rain water is best but any water will be fine. Keep the white ash at the bottom of the bucket and fill with water. Now stir the contents and allow the mixture to settle. This settling will take some time. Once it has settled the potassium carbonates will have dissolved into the water. Now you can pour off the water into a pan and allow the sun to evaporate the water. The other method is to put the water into a pot and boil off the water. This is more energy intensive but will be much quicker. If you choose to use wood as the heating source you can now save the ashes from that fire to extract more potassium carbonate. In the world of wizards, witches and chemists everything has value. After all, nothing is free in water world. Once you have boiled or evaporated the water off you will be left with a fine white powder at the bottom of the pan, don’t worry, this isn’t the ash that we started with, this is something else. This is the potassium carbonate you are looking for. Congratulations, you have just completed your first extraction and now have one ingredient for making soap and two ingredients for making gunpowder. The first compound you received was the charcoal from the wood you burned, this can be kept for many useful purposes. And the second compound you have collected is the potassium carbonate extracted from the wood ash. Look at you go, you have just passed your first lesson of wizarding, witching or chemistry. How you vision this simple process is your choice. Store these compounds in two separate containers and label for later use! Not only have you learnt how to extract these compounds but you have also started you very first chemical compound collection! In other words have just started your own mini chemical industry. Congratulations is clearly in order.

On the next episode I will continue to discuss how to use these compounds to make some of the most important products in the modern world from soap to gunpowder and from fluxes for the extraction of metals from ores to glazes for the purposes of sealing fired pottery. Over the course of the next episode I am sure that you will discover that Potash is quiet simply fascinating.

If you have any questions in regards to this process please leave a comment in the comments section below and I will endeavour to reply as quickly as I can.

Cheers!