Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Too much Cl2, what would YOU do with it?

BromicAcid - 21-12-2003 at 14:48

I am entertaining the possibility of making a functional downs cell. Of course the down side of this is the production of large quantites of chlorine gas, well, if I get it up and running, I'm shooting for a capacity of 2.5 Kg of molten salt or more so there should be lots of chlorine.

But what would you do with it?


Yeah, we all like it but that will make a lot of chlorine, and I'd rather not cough vent it. So what would you do with so much Cl2? I was thinking about making SnCl4 like Organikum is thinking about making. Something that would not be a waste of this gas but something that would not take considerable resources to make. Maybe make some sodium bismuthate? Comments on this predicament would be much appreciated.

[Edited on 12/21/2003 by BromicAcid]

chemoleo - 21-12-2003 at 15:02

Hmm, you need something that readily absorbs the Cl2. The SnCl4 would be tricky to do that continuously (rather than batch wise), as you need to add more Zn etc, plus you possibly need to extract the SnCl4 continuously.
If I was you, I would make myself a large pot of NaOH, and make lots and lots of fresh NaOCl. This I would use for my all-time favourite hydrazine. Alternatively, if you are in need of potassium chlorate (which I doubt you are), then use KOH instead and disproportionate it :). or use it to make Calciumhypochlorite. Na/KOH just has this beautiful ability to absorb any Cl2 very rapidly, with nothing coming through. Wont happen with Sn + Cl2!
Anyway, *if* you get the Downs cell to work, I'd be very impressed, be sure to make lots of pictures of the apparatus, and the final product! The Sodium! thread is going to explode!

KABOOOM(pyrojustforfun) - 22-12-2003 at 20:00

chloral from EtOH :cool:

unionised - 23-12-2003 at 15:30

An elegant, but impractical, thing to do would be to react it with SO2. That way, when you thought of something to use the Cl2 for, you could thermally decompose the SO2Cl2 and get the chlorine back.

Al Koholic - 24-12-2003 at 21:29

Not to mention that the SO2Cl2 itself is incredibly useful...acid halides anyone? Personally I don't think this would be terrrrrribly difficult to setup as long as you monitored gas production rates and didn't care about exactly matching them.

I would really concentrate on bubbling it through organic solvents like acetone, acetic acid, alcohol, etc.

Organikum - 25-12-2003 at 09:40

Just add enough Sn (not Zn ;)) from start and withdraw it from the bottom as SnCl4 is a liquid.

Anyways - wash you Cl2 through water and dry it with H2SO4/CaCl2 before any reaction, the Cl2 from a Downs-cell is anything but clean.

Also take care as the fast reaction of Cl2 with many compounds creates a strong SUCK.

It doesn't exactly solve the problem but...

I am a fish - 28-12-2003 at 12:25

If you're going to make large quantities of chlorine you could try liquidising it. It's boiling point is -35<sup>O</sup>C, which is in the range of some freezing mixtures (e.g. Water + Hydrated Potassium Hydroxide).

What you would do with liquid chlorine is a different matter altogether...

BromicAcid - 7-1-2004 at 13:26

Thank you very much for all the suggestions. Personally I like the SnCl4 method myself, but if it gets much colder I could almost liquify it without cooling, wouldn't that be funny. Regardless the cell is not ready yet so I can't run it now but....

Organikum - 7-5-2004 at 08:09

Chemoleo, how rapidly is NaOH supposed to react with Cl2 to form the hypochlorite? And at what temperatures?

Another suggestion how to scavenge chlorine easy and completely?