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Author: Subject: Uses for H2WO4???
Dangle89
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 03:20
Uses for H2WO4???


Hello all :)

Does anyone know any uses for Tungstic Acid (H2WO4)?

I have heaps from dissolving about 150g of 2% Thoriated welding rods in H2O2 and figured I would check if it was useful before disposing of it.

Only thing I have done is make some Na2WO4 and that was only because I couldn't find anything else to do with the H2WO4!

I'm sure someone out there will hate me for saying this (as they have probably spent their whole career working on tungsten compounds) but tungsten compounds seem boring as bat shit!

Thanks in advance :)

Dangle
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deltaH
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 04:00


Make heteropolyacids, e.g. phosphotungstic acid. It's a strong acid catalyst.

[Edited on 29-7-2015 by deltaH]




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diddi
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 04:35


I really like tungsten. don't go dissing it to much. you have to admire its density at least.



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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 04:36


Yes, the heteropoliacid is a nice application for the tungstic acid.
The other usefull compound is the one you've already made - tungstate is a catalyst, which can be used for PTC+H2O2 oxidation of water-insoluble (at least partially) alcohol to aldehydes/ketones, maybe it will work for epoxidation too.
Dangle89, I was not able to find the procedure for oxidation the tungsten via H2O2. In fact, I was looking for that simple procedure, could you post it here?
upd2: okay, I've managed to find something http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac60176a021?journalCode=...

[Edited on 29-7-2015 by byko3y]
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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 04:56


Indeed the density is impressive! Have read a bunch of stories of people drilling out gold bars and filling them with Tungsten rods (density for W and Au is almost identical - Au : 19.30g/cm3 - W : 19.25g/cm3)!

Here is the video I first saw it on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsMxha7ZC_Y

and here is one of a very few papers on the subject:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac60176a021

Dissolving W metal with H2O2 does not appear to have been researched in great depth (as far as I can see).

Hope that helps :)
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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 05:02


Hahaha that is what I mean :P

Every time I see a paper on the subject it is just copy's of the same thing :P

Could be (possibly?) an interesting subject for someone with better skills and facility's than me to research some more :)

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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 05:03


so have you tried the youtube method? I hope you didn't use the same music in your lab and that your beakers weren't sponsored by Tupperware

and did you try for the pure metal




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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 05:15


Na haven't tried pure W.

Aim of my experiment was to extract ThO2 but figured I would save the "waste" product in case it ever came in handy :)

Also without using heat took about 4-5 weeks, changing the 100ml 50% H2O2 bath weekly, for the rods to dissolve!

Hehehe :D na my "beaker" for this experiment was a jar as knew it would take a while and didn't want to have a real beaker out of action for that long!

Music in the vid is not my style either :P
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 07:33


Tungsten has 4d electrons and same electronegativity as chromium and molybdenum, that's why they are similar. I can't remember a lot of interesting experiments with those elements, it's all pretty much about oxidizing something.
For some reason chromium never forms heteropolyacid, while tungsten does not form ditungstic acid.
Lower oxidation states of tungsten, when combined with nonmetals with low electronegativity, give rock hard compounds like tungsten carbide and tungsten silicide, that's why they are pretty useless for organic chemistry and are relatively harder to produce.
It does not accepts electrons, thus forming no hydrides or alkaline salts.
Application of tungsten and molybdenum in organic chemistry is all about ligands. Even in the PTC-H2O2 case the reaction is driven by PTC-WO5-H2O complex http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Servic...
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annaandherdad
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 07:46


I'd like to know how they make tungsten filaments for incandescent light bulbs, with the tiny helix superimposed on a larger helix etc.



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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 07:51


I have some pure W welding rods here, I'll try to break a piece of it and leave in H2O2 to see what happens (not dissolving the whole thing, someone broke my carbon rods and I only have tungsten left for my arc furnace).
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deltaH
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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 09:45
Tungsten bronze


I don't know what kit you have, but tungsten bronze looks and sounds very cool.

800px-Sodium_tungsten_bronze.jpg - 40kB




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[*] posted on 29-7-2015 at 10:13


Make the Tungstic Acid into a salt and ship it around.



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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 00:21


Quote: Originally posted by deltaH  
I don't know what kit you have, but tungsten bronze looks and sounds very cool.


Wow! That looks amazing! Not sure how easly I could make it and did some research:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=N-QRBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1...

Page 139 if the link wigs out.

One of the methods mentioned electrolitic reduction of WO3 (dehydrated H2WO4) and Na2WO4 at 800C. I dont know if I have the facilitys to do this but would it be possible to make an impure sample by heating a mixture of WO3 and Na2WO4 in a crucible with a MAP gas torch while carbon electrodes sit in the mixure? Or would this need to be done in an inert atmospere with a diferent method of heating? I know my method (if it works at all) would make quite impure samples but I am cool with that :)

Just looks sooooo amazing and now I have seen that stuff I want some!

diggafromdover - It is already a yellow powder so wouldnt be hard to ship as it is if you want some :P

Thanks everyone :D

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deltaH
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 01:17


I was wondering if it can't be made from igniting a tiny amount of sodium metal and tungsten trioxide directly... a kinda sodium tungsten thermite :o

Would be VERY dangerous, so be warned that I wouldn't try this in more than milligram amounts to start with and unless properly experienced and kitted out for the dangers. It could very well explode.

If it doesn't explode, it would be a very easy way to make these types of tungsten bronzes, perhaps even molten? Imagine if it were castable! :cool:

I also wonder if one could use lithium metal (potentially recoverable from lithium batteries) to make a lithium tungsten bronze. However, I don't know if these bronzes even form with lithium?




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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 03:05


Quote: Originally posted by deltaH  
I was wondering if it can't be made from igniting a tiny amount of sodium metal and tungsten trioxide directly... a kinda sodium tungsten thermite :o

Would be VERY dangerous, so be warned that I wouldn't try this in more than milligram amounts to start with and unless properly experienced and kitted out for the dangers. It could very well explode.

If it doesn't explode, it would be a very easy way to make these types of tungsten bronzes, perhaps even molten? Imagine if it were castable! :cool:

I also wonder if one could use lithium metal (potentially recoverable from lithium batteries) to make a lithium tungsten bronze. However, I don't know if these bronzes even form with lithium?


Hi deltaH

Yup the Li bronze does exist :) A reference for it is in that link above :)

Li2CO3 +WO3 = LiXWO3 (at 780-850C)

Hmmm... I think I read somewhere about a Thermite type reaction to make it but pretty sure it was under inert atmosphere :( Will do some more research to see if it can be done in a backyard setup!

Might be worth a shot though! Once I am satisfied it won't be a CuO + Al type reaction I might give it a go!
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 03:42


It's exactly the CuO + Al reaction I was thinking off :o
WO3 is a pretty powerful oxidant and obviously Na/Li are nutty strong reductants, so, yeah... BOOM! (probably)

Quote:
Li2CO3 +WO3 = LiXWO3 (at 780-850C)


I doubt this will work, the tungsten bronze is a partially reduced tungsten trioxide, so you need a reducing agent.

Nice to see that lithium bronze is known.

Here's a grand idea, make a thermite this way using the following anhydrous reagents (or else it will blow up)!

6Al + 11WO3 + 9Na2WO4 => 3Al2O3 + 20Na[0.9]WO3

According to wiki, 0.9 sodium = golden coloured bronze.

I will go out on a limb here and say you might make blue coloured stuff at low sodium content (if this is anything like the electride trends).

Anhydrous sodium tungstate melts at 698°C, which is nice in terms of making this an easy starter.

Tungsten trioxide melts at 1,473 °C. Presumably the sodium in the bronze makes it melt a lower acting as an alkali flux, so if you're lucky, you might get a melt of the bronze and can cast with it :cool:

You can presumably calcine both your tungstic acid and sodium tungstate simultaneously in a crucible using a gas torch. Hopefully, this will make a brittle tungsten trioxide soda 'glass'. Then simply grind it for the thermite reaction.

I can just see the next craze, tungsten bronze statues :cool::cool::cool:

Maybe they won't even tarnish?!

Frak, there must be a ton of money to be made with this if it could be made to work...

[Edited on 1-8-2015 by deltaH]




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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 06:51


Wow! Had to share this! It talks about Li, Na, K, Rb AND Cs Tungsten Bronzes :o

http://actachemscand.org/pdf/acta_vol_05_p0372-0378.pdf

Only problem is the purification uses HF acid :( I crap my pants just thinking of HF's toxicity and knowing my luck I would spill it all over myself and be dead in a week :( For instance every single time I work with AgNO3 I somehow get a black spot on my hands! I always wear gloves and is probably as I am working with 100g+ of Ag metal at a time and know it wont hurt me too bad :-P Might be more careful if it was HF!!! :P

The Li2CO3 +WO3 = LiXWO3 (at 780-850C) thing said it was with electrolysis going. I don't really know how electrolysis effects compounds (electricity runs on bad voodoo and dark magic hehehe :P) so maybe that helps the reaction along? The only electrolysis I understand is breaking salts i.e. NaBr = Na(s) + Br(g/l/vapor - whatever you want to call it).

I will experiment on a few different methods and see if I can make something work :D Not this weekend though as it is raining here :(

Tungsten bronze statues is probably the coolest thing I have ever heard! Just has a really nice ring to it :cool:
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 07:03


Ah ok, yes then reduction is effected electrolytically. I still think a thermite is much simpler and if manageable, would work to make larger batches (important for tungsten bronze statues :P)

Nice find with that paper!

I see Wright (ref. 7 in the paper) had prepared them "by reduction of polytungstates with zinc", so not so far removed from my idea with the thermite ;)

Personally, I would not work with HF outside of a professionally kitted lab!!!

I expect the thermite to be pretty fast, but because much less aluminium is used, it might be better behaved. Possibly the low aluminium might make the thermite reaction not proceed at all, but I doubt that.

Also nice to see that polytungstates form, thus I think you certainly can fuse crude tungstic acid and sodium tungstate at high temperature to form the glass precursors I spoke of earlier.

[Edited on 1-8-2015 by deltaH]




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Dangle89
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 07:30


Yeah no intention of using HF in the foreseeable future!

Was looking for a "safer" way to fluorinate compounds than using F2 or HF at one point. Was looking at NH4HF2 but gave up one I saw that it makes HF when mixed in water :o

Plus in my research recently on legality of importing things found it was on ASIO's (Australia's CIA) list!
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 07:48


Time to source lots and lots of tungsten metal. Pure tungsten metal dissolution in H2O2 is clean and trivial. Partially neutralising the product and then calcining at <<1000°C to made tungstate soda glass is also fairly trivial. Don't know how easy it is to buy aluminium powders by you, but I'm guessing that's not so trivial?



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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 07:54


Surprisingly I don't have any Al powder at the moment :o

I will have to buy some now! :P

Damn i'm excited for this NaxWO3!!! :D:D:D

Buying pure W can get expensive though :( Might just have to go commercially pure in the short term!

[Edited on 1-8-2015 by Dangle89]
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 07:55


Me tooooo!!!!

If you ever do it, wait for it to cool down before digging out the bronze, else you risk oxidation in air if it's still very hot. I presume that's a problem at high temperatures.

If the tungsten bronze doesn't melt, then purifying it from the Al2O3 might be a problem :(

What about using OTC glass etching solutions to dissolve the Al2O3?

[Edited on 1-8-2015 by deltaH]




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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 11:20


What are some OTC glass etching solutions?

I'm fairly sure all HF (even those low concentration rust removers) products have been banned in AUS. Either for health reasons or because they figured someone was gonna buy cheap $5 rust remover, then spend a bazillion dollars on an UF6 enrichment plant for their back yard :P

The Only other compound that got a mention on wiki was NaF. Will check out an art store to see if they have anything when the sun comes up :) If I ever get to sleep before that :(
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[*] posted on 1-8-2015 at 13:23


Quote: Originally posted by Dangle89  
What are some OTC glass etching solutions?

I'm fairly sure all HF (even those low concentration rust removers) products have been banned in AUS. Either for health reasons or because they figured someone was gonna buy cheap $5 rust remover, then spend a bazillion dollars on an UF6 enrichment plant for their back yard :P

The Only other compound that got a mention on wiki was NaF. Will check out an art store to see if they have anything when the sun comes up :) If I ever get to sleep before that :(

Well, lucky me that I've got my nuclear centrifuges up and running before they figured it around here :p

Jokes aside, I think phosphoric acid also attacks Aluminum Oxide and it should be available OTC, not sure how it would react with the tungsten bronze...


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