Quantum - 28-2-2004 at 19:07
Yesterday I got about 1000ml of Roebic brand drain cleaner. It said it has H2SO4 in it right on the front and it came in a plastic bag; so far so good
I thought. It was black in color and it said it has aditives to stop it hurting the drain pipes. I did a test by pouring some acid into a beaker of
water and the beaker did get hot but other than that nothing happened. I then put some sugar in a bottle and poured in some acid expecting a huge
carbon 'thing' however nothing happened! Can anyone help me get rid of these additives that must be slowing down the reactions. Will boiling
get rid of them all or do I need to distill them?
chemoleo - 28-2-2004 at 20:05
Boil it to evaporate water (and whatever otehr volatile compounds are in there).
You want white fumes to evolve. Watch it, they are nasty, so do it outside (when I did that last time, les parents freaked out 
)
Then try it again, with sugar. I'm sure it will work then.
PS I doubt u will get rid of those additives by boiling - after all they are designed to withstand H2SO4.... but most certainly, you can
purify them away by reacting the acid with whatever you like.
Dont worry too much about it, I've read many instances where people used dyed stuff, and it still worked fine.
Post No 400!
The_Davster - 28-2-2004 at 20:43
I think i have something very similar to you. My H2SO4 was dyed black, just under 1L(900 something mls), and called "zonk plus". I tried
to make NC with it but it failed. I was planning to dilute it and titrate with NaOH but I am out of phenolphtalien
tom haggen - 28-2-2004 at 20:56
I had some H2SO4 and I let it sit out for like a month. It didn't really get any dust in it or anything but it was unconfined in a very humid
atmosphere. Other than obsorbing water out of the air do you think it is still good. Is there any chance of oxidation. It seems to have darkened a
little but not that much. It is still a medium yellow. I'm wondering if any sulfate could have broken away from the Dihydrogen. Is it still good
for synthesizing stuff? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
[Edited on 29-2-2004 by tom haggen]
thunderfvck - 29-2-2004 at 00:42
Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. Mine is red in color, although. But it seems to work for basically everything that I've tried to do in
acid-catalized reactions. The sugar also didn't form a huge mass of carbon: disappointing.
tom haggen - 29-2-2004 at 10:11
No your not in the same boat as me. I bought my acid 35% concentration with no die. I left it out for like 2 weeks actually and I was wondering if it
went bad. It was concentrated prior to leaving it sit out. It will still decompose sucrose. I'm just wondering if there was any chance that it
could have changed besides the fact that it absorbed moisture out of the air.
[Edited on 29-2-2004 by tom haggen]
thunderfvck - 29-2-2004 at 11:32
Uhhh, I was talking to Quantum...I don't know if your stuff has gone bad or not. Why don't you just test it to see if it's still as
concentrated?
Update and Great News!
Quantum - 29-2-2004 at 13:19
I tried boiling some of the acid. I placed my goggles on my head and my mask on my mouth. I also donned rubber gloves. My dad was scared that I would
die and quized me on everything about boiling H2SO4 untill I convinced him it would work. I used a small camping stove that uses Coleman fuel. The
500ml flask was placed on the stove and heated. At first nothing seemed to happen and my dad said that it would never work and would not get hot
enough to boil. Soon water vapor was given off and then the whitish blue fumes evolved just like you guys said. After it cooled I tried the sugar test
with about 10cc and it work well producing a large turd like thing. I put the acid in a FB flask for safe keeping.
Thanks for the help.
tom haggen - 29-2-2004 at 13:31
sorry bout that thunderfvck. I misread your post.
thunderfvck - 29-2-2004 at 13:37
Then why doesn't mine work? I want some black turds!
I did a test with NaHCO3 that proved the acid was roughly 98% H2SO4. Why aren't I getting the black carbon mass?
Quantum - 29-2-2004 at 14:34
Thunderfvck: I filled the bottom of my 400ml beaker about 0.5 cm up with sugar and then added a small amount of H2SO4. I stirred it around with my
glass rod for about 15s and then just when I though it wouldn't work, Woosh!, a large carbon thing rose up and the glass was very hot meaning an
exothermic reaction.
thunderfvck - 29-2-2004 at 16:14
Can anyone verify whether or not this is carbon? I remember reading that it was carbon, but that was a long time ago and my memory might be a bit off.
I tried it again. No luck. I added about 15 ml's worth of sugar into a 30ml beaker, added a few drops of H2SO4, stirred, waited, nothing. Added
more H2SO4, stirred, nothing. It eventually got to the point in which all the sugar had become black (the beaker did become hot also) but there was no
massive black column that evolved. I want to see this, dammit! What's the deal?
As I said before, I tested the H2SO4, with NaHCO3 neutralization, proved to be approxiametly 98%. What's going on here?
vulture - 1-3-2004 at 03:45
You're using way too much sugar to H2SO4.
Try 10g of sugar and 20ml of H2SO4.
Cx(H2O)x + H2SO4 ---> xC + H2SO4.xH2O
Thus, if you're using too much sugar the H2SO4 will dilute too rapidly.
BTW, the carbon that is being produced this way is of reasonable purity and has a large surface area. It's ideal for adsorbing applications.
[Edited on 1-3-2004 by vulture]
thunderfvck - 1-3-2004 at 14:25
Okay. I tried it like three more times. I don't have a scale so I can't really do nice ratioes here. But this time I used a little bit of
sugar with H2SO4 that completely covered it (even more than covered it). Stirred, nothign. The sugar just goes black after awhile.
I am, however, using quite a small amount of sugar. Do I need to use quite a bit to get the effect?
vulture - 1-3-2004 at 14:55
Yes, the reaction has to become exothermic enough in order to allow the formation of the snake.
Try:
100g sugar
80ml of H2SO4
and 15ml of water
Put 100g of sugar in a beaker, put a stick in the middle and proceed to add the H2SO4 as fast as possible.
This procedure is from a book that contains several display experiments.
"Feuer und Flamme, Schall und Rauch"
Esplosivo - 27-3-2004 at 06:41
The acid must be highly concentrated to dehydrate the sucrose molecule. I use 98.8% sulphuric acid and it sometimes doesn't work by simply mixing
the reactants.
For the reaction to work first WARM the acid (not more than 60 deg Celcius) and then add some sugar all at one go. Try to 'dissolve' as much
of it as possible by stirring. After a while a black solid will form. This is carbon, actually a very pure source of it.