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BlindedAchievement
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[*] posted on 18-1-2009 at 16:41
Uses of Chlorine


An achievement of unprestigious simplicity, but I have finally figured out my new way to produce elemental chlorine in both small and large quantities.

But now with this done, I would like to know some useful and fascinating reagents and products of chlorine experimentation. The most convenient being the dissolving of the highly toxic gas in a solvent.
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[*] posted on 18-1-2009 at 17:00


Making chlorine is easy.

My advice is: do not store it. Make it only as needed, use it in situ, and this way you will avoid all the serious hazards of its storage.

Pray tell what is your method of generating chlorine gas?

There are many but some are better than others. Some will leave gooey brown messes of solid waste.

Most really interesting things to do with chlorine require rather elaborate equipment such as a fume hood, glove box, etc.

And a lot of orhanic chlorine compounds are reactive, corrosive, lachrymatory, and/or toxic. Many of its inorganic compounds as well.

My advice is:don't so this till you are adequately educated about what you are doing and how to do it and adequately equipped to do it safely.




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[*] posted on 18-1-2009 at 17:32


Blindedachievement, no double posting please.

As there are about a zillion and one experiments that can be done with chlorine, I'll put this in 'Beginnings' for now until you become a bit more specific. In the meantime, have a look around in the forum, and you'll get lots of ideas!




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[*] posted on 18-1-2009 at 17:54


First of all, I will not store it. I will only produce the quantities needed, and with great caution.

Secondly, forgive my unspecification, I am very unfimiliar with the system here.


My proposition was for amatuer fascination with the product. Anything really interesting, useful in an averge lab. I cannot go any further than that, but if you choose to leave it in beginnings, so be it.
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[*] posted on 18-1-2009 at 23:56


What you can do with chlorine also strongly depends on what other reagents you have. With chlorine alone you cannot do that much interesting.

I do have a few suggestions, but be very careful when doing these experiments. ALWAYS work outside on a breezy day, with wind from behind!

One interesting experiment is to take a wick of a candle, soak this with petroleum ether or some other volatile flammable solvent. Light the wick and immerse this in pure chlorine gas. It will continue burning with an extremely sooty red flame. Try experimenting a little with different solvents, one solvent works better than other solvents. Better results are obtained with solvents, rich in unsaturated hydrocarbons and with more volatile ones.

Another interesting beginners experiment is making bromine from KBr or NaBr. Simply buibble chlorine through the solution of the bromide and you'll get bromine. The vapor of the bromine can easily be observed, it is nice brown/orange. Again, be VERY careful, bromine vapor is at least as toxic as chlorine gas! the bromine in turn can be absorbed in a ml or so of ligroin and then in sunlight you can see how the bromine slowly reacts with the ligroin.

There are many more interesting things which you can do, but I first would like to know which other reagents you have and what kind of experiments/demos you have in mind.




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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 00:40


Making chlorine is easy, getting in into a form that is useful is harder.

The Cl2 needs to be dry, and free from HCl, and some processes for generating Cl2 are better than others in this regard.

Regardless, you should run your Cl2 through a drying train before reacting it.

A drying train is a series of gas washing bottles. The bottles are half filled with conc H2SO4 which will absorb moisture and pass the Cl2. A final bottle is emptry and is a guard against suckback. A check valve is a good idea.

See Vogel (PRACTICAL ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 3rd Ed.) for detils but I do not recommend his Cl2 prep (HCl/KMnO4).

What method were you planning on for generating Cl2?

The Vogel book is in forum library, it's the one by Arthur Vogel you want. You can download whole book free.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/




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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 06:35


And if you're not aware of the dangerous reactions of halogens with ammonia and its ion, you should acquaint yourself with texts on the subject.
Safety foist!

[Edited on 19-1-2009 by hissingnoise]
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wink.gif posted on 19-1-2009 at 11:43


Some very interesting experiments suggessted. By the way, did you mean that dissolving chlorine in potassium bromide or sodium bromide would produce bromine in its liquid state, or gas state?

To answer the next question of the number of chemicals and reagents I have readily avaivible; 18-20% concentrated sulfuric acid, 30-32% concentrated hydrochloric acid, lots of magnesium, potassium bromide ammonia, sodium hydrogen ulfate, iron fillings, zin powder, sulfur, iodine solution, potassium iodide, potassium permanganate, sodium chloride, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, calcium hydroxide, potassium hexafornate (probably spelled it wrong), calcium sulfate, copper sulfate, hydrogen bromide, sodium bicarbonate, and that's all I remmber. Oh, and iodine starch.


When I started this thread, I was thinking of dissolving the chlorine in a solvent. I asked here if anyone had any good ideas as to which type of solvent for an interesting reaction.
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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 12:44


If you pass chlorine through aqueous bromide, you will get bromine water. If you have a high bromide concentration you may get droplets of bromine sink to the bottom, you will also likely see the brown vapours unless it is quite cold.

You could do lots with the list you mention. You could pass chlorine thorugh aqueous potassium iodide and get iodine aswell. Dissolve chlorine in water and add this dropwise to solutions of other halide, chlorine water can be kept in the dark and cold for a few days. I wouldn't try dissolve it in anything else! You could make the vile smelling sulphur chlorides by passing a little chlorine over sulphur until a liquid droplet forms that is easy but smelly, do it on a small scale. You could also burn magnesium in chlorine, and compare the reaction of aluminium, zinc and iron to chlorine gas.




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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 12:46


Quote:
Originally posted by BlindedAchievement

When I started this thread, I was thinking of dissolving the chlorine in a solvent.


Chlorine, being highly reactive and an oxidiser will react with all of the solvents I can think of. . .
If you're oxidising HCl, consider the acid as a reduced chlorine solution.

[Edited on 19-1-2009 by hissingnoise]
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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 13:47


A potentially useful reaction is; Cl2 + H2O+ H2SO3---> H2SO4 + 2HCl.
Btw, has anyone here produced sulphuric acid by this reaction?
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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 14:38


20% H2SO4 is DILUTE.

Concentrated H2SO4 is typically 95% and d 1.86

You still have not revealed how you will generate chlorine.




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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 15:00


He must be using HCl on KMnO4 since both are mentioned above.
He has sulphur too, so maybe he'll try upping the conc. of his H2SO4.
18-20% is barely sour. . .
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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 15:14


He would be well advised to read the threads on generating Cl2 with TCCA and HCl.

Does he think KMnO4 is a closely guarded secret? Applying for a patent?




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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 15:29


He'll be wanting to know what TCCA is---next post. . .
Sorry, B-A.
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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 15:35


Everyone knows how to make chlorine so perhaps he was just not gonna litter a thread with a well known subject...mmm...just dont try making it from electrolysis!!! HaHaHa...



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[*] posted on 19-1-2009 at 16:00


Some ways are definitely better than others. KMnO4 bogs down halfway through and then requires heat, the rate of gas generation even in the first stage is inconsistent, and it leaves a huge mess of MnO2. Ugh.

TCCA leaves only cyanuric acid, which can be used to regenerate TCCA (as if it wasn't cheap enough) and other things. Non-staining white powder. Gas production is more consistent.

I would not presume this fellow knows much of anything, he appears pretty clueless.

TCCA (swimming pool chemical) is both more available OTC and cheaper than KMnO4.




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[*] posted on 20-1-2009 at 14:50


Well, of course the basic way to generate chlorine is by adding potassium permangante to a few milimeters of hydrochloric acid, and heat that mixture. I just assumed it wasn't that important how I produced it, only what the thread was actually about. Obviously, it's no secret. Sorry for any misunderstanding.


Now, about that reaction; Cl2 + H2O + H2SO3. Do you have any information on about how much H2SO3 to use? I presume that you mean just mixing it with the solution of chlorine.
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[*] posted on 20-1-2009 at 14:54


Oh, and by the way, panziandi, when you said to pass the chlorine gas through potassium iodide solution, is the product elemental iodine or iodine solution?
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[*] posted on 20-1-2009 at 14:58


Well first you obtain Iodine the Iodine will react with KI to from KI3, but with increased addition of chlorine you will disrupt that equilibrium by removing KI to form KCl and I2 so eventually you will get Iodine solid in a solution of potassium chloride, a small amount of Iodine will be dissolved in the water but the % is not very high and in fact you may start forming ICl if you continued to pass chlorine in. You could prepare I2 then isolate that then chlorinate that to obtain ICl and further chlorinate that to obtain ICl3. Be an interesting change of colour and states of matter and will get you familiar with the halogens and their properties and reactions.



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[*] posted on 20-1-2009 at 15:05


I will keep that in the forefront of my thinking. Thank you.
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[*] posted on 20-1-2009 at 22:00


You do NOT add KMnO4 to HCl (and it is milliLITERS not milliMETERS.

You drip the acid onto powdered KMnO4. You do NOT have to heat the until about half of the calculated amount of HCl has been added (and the reaction slows considerably.)

HOWEVER this is an obsolete and inferior method as well as messy and relatively expensive.

The preferred method is to drip HCl onto granular TCCA (trichloroisocyanuric acid) which despite the jawbreaker name is a common dirt cheap swimming pool chlorinator.

UTFSE and read the threads on making Cl2 this way, by len1 and others including myself.

Of course if you have a use for lots of goopy MnO2 waste then go right ahead with KMnO4. Few of us do.




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[*] posted on 21-1-2009 at 06:34


MnO2 will oxidise HCl if the temperature is raised somewhat and Cl2 bubbled into a hot saturated solution of Na or KOH will form chlorate and chloride.
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[*] posted on 21-1-2009 at 20:46


A very good number of sugestions, but let's evaluate what we already have before moving on. We can pick one, and then all thatcan do it, well, do it if you want, and we can compare results. Just a suggestion.


In my opinion, the ones that produced elemental iodine or MnO2, and chlorine water were very interesting, and could go through further evaluation.

So, if anybody has some new suggestions for experiments using chlorine, and think it's really worth it, please do post it, and if not, kind of "vote" for what to do first. I think it would be really fascinating.
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[*] posted on 21-1-2009 at 22:45


KmnO4 contains how much chlorine?

NONE

All Cl2 generated with KMnO4 comes from HCl.

TCCA contains THREE chlorine atomes per molecule, or to put it another way 3 mols Cl2 (213 g) per 2 mols TCCA.

Therefore reacting TCCA with HCl is a very efficient chlorine generating process compared to doing so with any reagent that contains no chlorine itself.

I suggest that as a learning exercise you work out the stoichiometry for both reactions (that is, write balanced equations) and compare.

Anyway, if you are not interested in taking advice, then I'm not interested in wasting any more time offering it.




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