Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Impure TCCA - How do I purify it?

Haber - 27-2-2015 at 12:04

Hi!
I have recently aquired some low grade TCCA (Trichloroisocyanuric acid). According to the data sheet the composition is:

TCCA 50-100%
Aluminum sulfate 0-3%
Copper sulfate 0-3%

This doesnt seem to add up, if its only 50% TCCA that means it could be up to 50% of unknown material?
Anyone here who got a clue about what the rest of the impurities might be composed of?

Also, what would be the most effective way to purify the TCCA? Recrystallisation of some sort?

Thanks in advance

Best Regards

xfusion44 - 27-2-2015 at 12:42

Hard to say if there are unknown impurities :-/

Maybe you should ask manufacturer of your TCCA about other impurities.

[Edited on 27-2-2015 by xfusion44]

morganbw - 27-2-2015 at 15:38

Process for purifying trichlorocyanuric acid

Haber - 3-3-2015 at 01:51

Thanks for your replies.

Since I did not know all the impurities in my TCCA I wasnt comfortable with adding sulphuric acid to it (NaCl impurity would form chlorine?).

I tried to purify it by another method (No refs, never read about this method, I dont even know if its effective)

I stirred my tcca with acetone for a while (No heat! Be aware of chloroacetone), decanted (Copper sulfate and a white unknown left behind).
There was still a white fluffy solid in the acetone, I then vacuum filtered which didn't remove the fluffy white, but fortunately it lumped together so it could be removed with another decant.

A clear acetone solution was obtained, I quenched this with alot of cold water which gave a massive precipitation of what I hope is fairly pure TCCA, filtered and dried.
The solid is colorless and smell swimmingpool, great analytics right? ;)

Im sorry I didn't provide any quantities, I only needed a small amount and I have loads of impure TCCA so my workup was very sloppy with alot of mechanical losses.