I hope you've all stocked up, or at least you have the Iodine situation figured out ;) because as of today in the U.S. Iodine has become more difficult to obtain, under the guise of "The War On Drugs", but more appropriately by the aggressive strong-arm of "The War BY Big Pharma"
So here's a great recipe to tuck away for some day just in case things get really, really tight here. Our Freedoms are being chipped away daily, so I suggest that you print it out just in case someone somewhere decides to disappear the link on the site! :) (or easier just to copy-paste from here):
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>>>"You will need: Bunsen burner and asbestos square (or a hot plate) Tripod and tin lid Beaker, 250 ml Separating funnel 100ml Evaporating dish
Hydrogen peroxide 20 volume Tetrachloromethane or dichloromethane Distilled water 1M solution of Sulphuric acid Supply of ribbon seaweed(Laminaria) - that you can obtain a a biological supply store or from the sea shore
Procedure (You must work at a fume cupboard) 1-Collect and dry about a dozen 50cm lenghts of the seaweed and heat them strongly on a tin recipient until they are reduced to ash; probably it will reduce a quite small quantity, about a spoonful. 2- Add to the ash 20 ml of distilled water in a beaker, and heat the suspension until it boils. 3 - Filter the suspension 4 - Acidify the filtered with Sulphuric acid solution 5 - Add then the hydrogen peroxide solution You will observe the formation of a brown color due the iodine liberation from the iodine ions present 6- Transfer the mixture to a separating funnel 7 -Extract the Iodine with tetrachloro methane or other solvent. The result is an organic solution of iodine. 8 - In order to obtain crystals , the solvent may be allowed to evaporate at room temperature, by placing it in an evaporating dish in a fume cupboard. It will result crystals of iodine or rather gray- black brilliant flakes."<<<
yes, i scraped up the ingredients to make it. i will say this, i got the I2 off of ebay. it cost me over $50 to make 500ml. the only reason i am posting this is for education. here is how it went:
i took my 500ml Lugols bottle and put fifty grams of pure potassium Iodide followed by not more than 100ml of distilled water. the KI dissolved rapidly and the bottom of the bottle turned ice cold. i have no idea what kind of reaction makes this take place. i then put 30 grams of 99.8% pure Iodine i bought off of ebay. even though this was five grams over the recipe, it all dissolved very quickly, just as i expected from my reading. i then filled the bottle the rest of the way with distilled water and behold, lugols.
even though this stuff is stronger than normal making it 16% instead of 15%, it is way less nasty than that industrial floor cleaner i got from medex. it smells less acrid, yet the scent is stronger, more defined. in all fairness, the medex stuff was fine, but i wonder what the difference is. maybe it is age? i would bet on the ingredients, including the water. still using magnets. still able to take large doses every day with nothing but a better body to show for it.
another plus to doing this is that i have a remnant of iodine in the small glass vial it came in. a flick of my bic and thats all it takes to see that beautiful purple color. i love that.
5 gm iodine 10 gm potassium iodide 100 ml of distilled water yields 6.3 mg Iodine per drop
Instructions
carefully measure out the iodine and potassium iodine with a digital scale that reads to 1/100th of a gram. measure out the water with a glass beaker that measures in milliliters. combine together in a glass container. dont breath the fumes while mixing. remember - everything must remain DRY (until mixing with water) and completely STERILE!! do not contaminate any of the ingredients or instruments.
digital scale. there are digital scales all voer the internet. this looks like a good one, i think its best to get one that measures to the 1/100th of a gram, tho 1/10th of a gram will work too.