Sciencemadness Discussion Board

electrolysis of nacl in propylene carbonate

mackolol - 16-6-2018 at 00:57

Hi, I'm interested in making cell for electrolysis of nacl in propylene carbonate to get cheap sodium and chlorine, but i can't find anything on google and I'm afraid of doing it without any previous informations about this as I'm beginner in amateur chemistry. Does anybody have information about this? What should electrodes be like and how does the sodium forms, what is the efficiency, if the chlorine doesn't destroy anything and the major dangers.

hexahydrate - 16-6-2018 at 01:11

I'm also interested in this procedure and I'm planning to do an experiment, when I get all the stuff needed. NaCl is not soluble in Propylene Carbonate, so AlCl3 has to be added and then NaAlCl4 electrolysed. Look at the linked paper.


ELECTRODEPOSITION OF THE ALKALI METALS FROM PROPYLENE CARBONATE

Hunterman2244 - 17-6-2018 at 07:34

How would one make AlCl3?

JJay - 17-6-2018 at 08:00

Zinc chloride and aluminum is the most amateur friendly way. If you want large quantities of it, you'll probably want to heat aluminum in a stream of chlorine or hydrogen chloride. It is probably possible to use the more OTC copper (ii) chloride instead of zinc chloride, but the reaction is pretty fierce.

[Edited on 17-6-2018 by JJay]