Okay... So I bought a ferric chloride etchent from radio shack. I thought it would be of more use if I boiled off the crap - the MSDS says water and hydrochloric acid. I was using a coors evaporation dish on
a ring stand with triangle over a bunsen burner with a watch glass on top in my hood. It was going real smoothly. My finished product was red-brown-black and nearly impossible to get out... not to
mention insoluble. Iron oxide, I assume ? How can I avoid this and get that
good ol' ferric chloride I deserve?Lambda-Eyde - 10-10-2011 at 13:40
If you had bothered to read the Wikipedia article, you would have known that FeCl<sub>3</sub> (as well as other strong Lewis acids)
hydrolyzes in solution...
[Edited on 10-10-2011 by Lambda-Eyde]ScienceHideout - 10-10-2011 at 13:44
I didn't know that Ferric chloride hydrolyzes... I don't like wikipedia too
much-
Is there a way to prevent hydrolysis?blogfast25 - 11-10-2011 at 04:38
If you had bothered to read the Wikipedia article, you would have known that FeCl<sub>3</sub> (as well as other strong Lewis acids)
hydrolyzes in solution...
[Edited on 10-10-2011 by Lambda-Eyde]
Half right.
FeCl3 does hydrolyse but it can be crystallised from a strong (azeotropic) HCl solution, which very effectively suppresses the hydrolysis. I've
obtained solid FeCl3.6H2O and posted the pictures here. Many outlets sell solid ferric chloride hexahydrate. It's no big deal...