Sciencemadness Discussion Board

stannous chloride

trinitro - 13-4-2011 at 12:05

Can any answer a question for me. I was really curios about the groundwater here where I live as it is always rich in hydrogen sulphide (What other sulphides exist I really want to know) I took a sample of groundwater about 10 gallons and evaporated the water and was left with a sulphur looking substance that doesn't smell like sulphur but gives a faint hint of sulphur when burned. I dissolved 1/2 gram in nitric acid and then tested with stannous chloride (yes I made it out of 999 tin and hcl outside of course) My results were a very neon green (light green just greener than a yellow tennis ball) Any idea what would cause this color? I am really curious. (By the way I do these kind of things because I am bored and I am trying to fill my head with more useless info)

blogfast25 - 13-4-2011 at 12:34

Firstly, are you sure about the hydrogen sulphide? That’s rotten eggs gas, perceptible in even the smallest quantities and quite poisonous too…

Check this with some filter paper soaked in lead nitrate, hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the water makes it go black due to the formation of black PbS. If you haven’t got any or don’t know how to make it (caution: lead salts are seriously toxic!) I’d invest in some because having H2S in your water is hardly desirable and worth knowing about with certainty.

When you were testing with SnCl2, what did you do exactly and what was your purpose (intentions and anticipated outcomes)?



[Edited on 13-4-2011 by blogfast25]

m1tanker78 - 13-4-2011 at 12:35

Could be copper. This happened to me a few days ago (although it was an experiment aimed at making quick stannous chloride). I had a tiny amount of copper impurity and it turned my solution neon green - as in highlighter neon green. I don't ever recall getting "neon" green from iron compounds but who knows?

Tom

Sedit - 13-4-2011 at 12:50

This same thing happened when local legislation forced the new well to be into another strata much lower then the first well which had good water.

Now there is heavy contamination of sulfates, mostly Mangenese and Iron, which are converted to hydrogen sulfide mostly by the action of the electrods in the water heater from what I can gather. This can be prevented using a Magnesium sacraficial anode IIRC. Your choiced of electrodes are Zinc, Alumininum and Magnesium. I believe Mg is the one that prevents the rotten egg smell from being generated.

I Iron Sulfates leave a heavy Iron hydroxide precipitate all over the place.

trinitro - 13-4-2011 at 13:05

Absolutely positive about hydrogen sulphide if you water from a shallow well the rotten egg odor is really powerful and will carry on a hot day for about 500 ft. And yes I know hydrogen sulphide is poisonous, but the levels must be low as I know alot of people who drink the water(NASTY) and have for many years. (you know they drink it they smell like rotten eggs). I live in sw florida and I know there is some PB here but more of a problem with mercury.

Lead I try to stay away from as much as possible knew someone who got lead poisoning and i really do not want to make the salts I do not have equipment, or formal education in chemistry so if I am unsure of it I don't do it.

Exactly I dissolved (as much as it would dissolve)1/2 gram of my sample in nitric acid. Then I poured the liquid off onto coffee filter doubled and removed the top one so that I didn't have to deal with undissolved solids. Then with an eyedropper I dropped 3 drops (enough to cover the wet spot) of th stannous chloride I made from pure tin and HCL. The reaction gave it's color in about 20 to 30 seconds. I allowed that to air dry for one day and there was no more color change. End test

ScienceSquirrel - 13-4-2011 at 13:34

Bathing in mineral waters that are rich in sulphide or other minerals is a human cultural activity, sometimes the water is drunk as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_springs
In some cases it may be beneficial, for instance athlete's foot is unlikely to survive a good dose of hot sulphurous water.
A solution of polysulphide is available in Japan and this is used by people that want to enjoy a mineral spring experience in their bath at home. On the darker side it is mixed with drain cleaner to produce lethal doses of hydrogen sulphide and is a preferred method of suicide.

trinitro - 13-4-2011 at 16:32

LOL IT SAYS i AM HARMLESS tee hee hee don't know me very well. As a kid I took achemistry set and just mixed everything up, and barely got away before it left a crater in the ground. NEVER DO THAT.

blogfast25 - 14-4-2011 at 04:48

Quote: Originally posted by trinitro  
Exactly I dissolved (as much as it would dissolve)1/2 gram of my sample in nitric acid. Then I poured the liquid off onto coffee filter doubled and removed the top one so that I didn't have to deal with undissolved solids. Then with an eyedropper I dropped 3 drops (enough to cover the wet spot) of th stannous chloride I made from pure tin and HCL. The reaction gave it's color in about 20 to 30 seconds. I allowed that to air dry for one day and there was no more color change. End test


Great but you're not answering my question. Why did you choose SnCl2 as a reagent? What, in your mind, was it going to do to your filtrate?

trinitro - 14-4-2011 at 06:38

I was researching precious metals and it was one of the most talked about reagents to determine precious metal existence in solution. As I said before I am not a chemist nor have I had formal training, that said I will only try chemicals that I feel comfortable with I really did have a very scary incident with chemicals although I was very young and had no clue what so ever, now that I am older I at least try to educate myself, and the chemistry that I try tends to revolve around precious metals, such as dissolving silver in nitric to obtain silver chloride upon precipitation. But living in south west Florida the gold and silver here can be pretty well be considered unobtainable at least from my perspective. ppb or ppt is to expensive to fool with. No I will not have anything to do with cyanide don't ask I know very little about it, and before I would feel comfortable working with it I would have to be educated about it. Same for Thiosulfates. But Acids I get, I trust them I know what they will do pretty much and I know how to protect myself. No I am not looking for gold here(unless it is on the beach) But I do know that amongst the phosphate minerals that are in abundance here there is platinum group metals along with uranium. That is what I am targeting. What did I think it was going to do to my filtrate I am not really sure, but I was hoping to find a positive test for PGM's I hope I answered your question.

blogfast25 - 14-4-2011 at 12:16

Well, I don't really know of any specific tests that use SnCl2 for PMG metals...

trinitro - 15-4-2011 at 11:41

Well do you have any suggestions? Should I produce a sample and have assay done?

blogfast25 - 15-4-2011 at 11:58

If you're unsure about the quality of the water you're drinking then I'd say that that investment may quite literally be a life saver!

It could be useful to post some pictures of what you obtained with your SnCl2 test, the green is unusual: I don't know of any green Sn compounds. 'Neon green', BTW, doesn't exist: neon (the element) in 'neon lights' is actually amber/red:

http://periodictable.com/Elements/010/index.html

trinitro - 15-4-2011 at 14:33

I was using "neon" only as a description. No I don't drink untreated well water it taste awful I live in an area where there is water supply pretreated by the county. I am in search of pgm's. After 2 years of being miserably unemployed I am in search of way to make money and not kill the environment(ground water can be pumped up filtered and pumped back into the ground without destroying the environment and the filtates be processed for pgm's it is only a thought and something that I have been researching for a while) As soon as possible I will rerun my test and post a picture.

blogfast25 - 16-4-2011 at 04:01

Searching for PGMs may be a bit of a pie in the sky. But the green colour obtained, assuming you can actually replicate it, is very interesting. Your homemade SnCl2 solution sounds fine. Any idea what concentration you made?

And another question: you claim to have evaporated 10 gallon of water. How did you do that? It seems hard to do w/o contaminating it, in my book…

[Edited on 16-4-2011 by blogfast25]

trinitro - 16-4-2011 at 12:12

I used 32%hcl and pure tin other than that I can only guess as I said before I am not a chemist.
Evaporation occured in a coffee pot on hot plate, I really didn't think that contamination would be a prob but now that you mention it that brings up a good point because the glass vessel was open to atmosphere, I really did not give that much thought. But now that puts me at a quandry, do you suppose that filtering through activated carbon would produce a less contaminated sample, as I believe that the activated carbon could be burned off or is it possible that would only open another can of worms. It is all just a thought maybe wishful thinking on my part but if is feasible and possible to remove metals in the manner in which I am trying to attack the situation I could create an income that is only biased by the market and have less effect by the economy(yes I do understand the economy will determine the value of all metals) And who knows maybe in the end I will end up recovering another metal which is not precious but still has value. I am not trying to be unrealistic and trying to recover something that simply isn't there. I only picked a starting point and just see where the journey takes me.

blogfast25 - 16-4-2011 at 13:10

Let's just see where repeating the test leads to first, eh?

Neil - 17-4-2011 at 06:32

Tin (II) Chloride is used to test solutions for the presence of PGM's via color change. Gold shows as being purplish, Platinum as dark to deep orange verging on red and palladium as a dark green. I think rhodium shows as a bright red but I'm not 100% on that one.

Google "Stanniouse test" in Google images and you'll get a couple of color comparisons.

kuro96inlaila - 17-4-2011 at 09:19

I'm sure you suppose to mean "stannous test",not "stanniouse test".;)

Neil - 17-4-2011 at 12:42

:o I sure did!

blogfast25 - 18-4-2011 at 02:33

Quote: Originally posted by Neil  
Tin (II) Chloride is used to test solutions for the presence of PGM's via color change. Gold shows as being purplish, Platinum as dark to deep orange verging on red and palladium as a dark green. I think rhodium shows as a bright red but I'm not 100% on that one.

Google "Stanniouse test" in Google images and you'll get a couple of color comparisons.



Well, well, live and learn: I didn’t know about that test. Searching doesn’t yield much of an explanation though. Am I right in thinking it’s a reduction reaction? For instance Pd2+ + Sn2+ --- > Pd(0) + Sn4+ with colloidal metal providing the colour? Or is there some complex involved?

Neil - 18-4-2011 at 18:26

My understanding is that it produces colloidal metal precipitates with the PGM's. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_of_Cassius