Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Most easily made sulfate from elemental sulfur (powdered sulfur - flours of sulfur)

RogueRose - 15-1-2016 at 00:23

I'm curious what would be the easiest sulfate compound to make from powdered sulfur + another compound + process (heating, electrolysis, etc). I know H2SO4 seems to be pretty difficult to do on a home lab scale (at least from what I've read), but are there other sulfates that are fairly easy to produce?

j_sum1 - 15-1-2016 at 00:33

Burn S and pass the resultant SO2 gas through a slurry of MnO2. You will get Manganese sulfate in solution which can be filtered off the remaining MnO2. If you use battery gunk the procedure is totally otc.
Nurdrage has a video of the setup. I have tried it and it works nicely.

ave369 - 15-1-2016 at 06:07

There is a quite simple H2SO4 preparation from SO2 (made by burning elemental sulfur). You need to bubble the gas through concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Of course, it is impractical (at least where I live, concentrated H2O2 is much harder to obtain and more sought after than the resulting dilute H2SO4 which is in every car parts shop).

There is a more complex method to make H2SO4 straight from elemental sulfur: NurdRage's electrobromine method. You need hydrobromic acid for that, but it is not expended, it works like a catalyst. Seek the video among NurdRage's Youtube videos.

gsd - 15-1-2016 at 06:40

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1  
Burn S and pass the resultant SO2 gas through a slurry of MnO2. You will get Manganese sulfate in solution which can be filtered off the remaining MnO2. If you use battery gunk the procedure is totally otc.
Nurdrage has a video of the setup. I have tried it and it works nicely.


This is indeed a one step process to get MnSO4 from its original raw materials. In the conventional process you have convert MnO2 to MnO and SO2 to H2SO4 and then react them to get MnSO4.

Unfortunately MnSO4 is not the only product of the reaction. You get sizable quantity of Manganese dithionate as well.

MnO2 + SO2 ----- > MnSO4
MnO2 + 2SO2 ------> MnS2O6

In an uncontrolled reaction you get as much as 35 % Dithionate and 65% Sulfate. The percentage conversion to Sulfate can be verified by filtering the final solution and evaporating to dryness to get crystals. Pure MnSO4 crystallizes as Monohydrate giving % Mn as 32.5% as pure dried MnSO4.H2O crystals (MW=169). If it is contaminated with Manganese Dithionate (MW=215) then the Mn % comes down correspondingly.

BTW the formation of Dithionate is not easily detected as the colour of solution is unchanged from that of pure MnSO4 solution (Bright Pink).

gsd

careysub - 15-1-2016 at 09:02

It should be noted that manganese sulfate (like zinc sulfate) is also OTC. It is a commonly used agricultural nutrient.

You won't find it in your average home and garden center, but it is widely and cheaply available (try Googling or eBay).

aga - 15-1-2016 at 09:20

Beginning at page 54 of "Simple Chemical Experiments, Alfred Morgan" in the SM Library

http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/morgan_simpl...

"CHAPTER III
EXPERIMENTS WITH SULFUR AND
SOME OF ITS COMPOUNDS"

Sulphur trioxide was much simpler back in 1941.

annaandherdad - 15-1-2016 at 09:43

That's a nice book.

Bert - 15-1-2016 at 10:21

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Beginning at page 54 of "Simple Chemical Experiments, Alfred Morgan" in the SM Library

http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/morgan_simpl...

"CHAPTER III
EXPERIMENTS WITH SULFUR AND
SOME OF ITS COMPOUNDS"

Sulphur trioxide was much simpler back in 1941.


Handling was just as complicated though- Note the author is not telling the kids to COLLECT the SO3.

Anyone planning on scaling this up and collecting the SO3- Please consider that you would be heating a fuel and an oxidizer in a (mostly closed) container. Overheating/a thermal runaway with more than the specified tiny amount has the potential to get frisky. BLAM!

Check the SO3 production threads for handling properties of SO3, behavior on contacting water (more BLAM!), etc. and proceed accordingly.

But do it. For the children...

aga - 15-1-2016 at 11:49

That comment sparked a possibly interesting idea :

If controllable in small ammounts, yet not in large quantities, why not make an Injection engine (like a diesel engine).

BLAM ! Eject gas, eject residues, inject fresh reagents. BLAM ! etc etc.

Exhaust gas is a continuous SO3 stream

H2SO4 by the agaEngine<sup>tm</sup> Process is born.

[Edited on 15-1-2016 by aga]

blogfast25 - 15-1-2016 at 12:54

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
That comment sparked a possibly interesting idea :

If controllable in small ammounts, yet not in large quantities, why not make an Injection engine (like a diesel engine).

BLAM ! Eject gas, eject residues, inject fresh reagents. BLAM ! etc etc.

Exhaust gas is a continuous SO3 stream

H2SO4 by the agaEngine<sup>tm</sup> Process is born.

[Edited on 15-1-2016 by aga]


SO2 doesn't oxidise to SO3 without catalyst. See 'Contact Process'.

aga - 15-1-2016 at 13:55

What did you imagine the engine was made of ?

(or at least the cylinder liner & piston head)

[Edited on 15-1-2016 by aga]

Bert - 15-1-2016 at 14:17

I suspect the successful reaction is liquid-solid with only the Sulfur melted, if both reactants melt/reach a proper hot liquid mix, you will probably have BLAM.

There have been a number of attempts to make a piston engine run on solid, self oxidizing EM's or EM mixtures as a fuel- Each of the designs I know of where combustion occurred in a cylinder ended up the same way- BLAM! (fuel magazine/feed mechanism explosions, usually). The good news, some of the inventors went on to work with air and alcohol or gasoline, if they lived through their first experiments.

There are several other designs where EM burns in a controlled fashion as a gas generator to feed hot gasses either to a turbine or a cylinder with a piston. These have often worked better, but see Hudson Maxim's Dynamite Stories for a few REALLY good KABLAAAAAAM!!!s he experienced while trying to turn what was essentially double base powder (Mororite) into torpedo gas generator fuel.

I do want to try a small experiment myself (properly barricaded). I have Vanadium pentoxide on hand, but am intrigued by the idea that Potassium/Potassium sulfide/sulfate or whatever is actually formed in the described experiment might do the catalytic trick, even if only for a small quantity at low efficiency. Tube furnaces and quartz apparatus are kind of expensive to rig up, continuous process even more so and is more for a plant scale operation. I just need a bit of oleum here and there...

Of course, I have seen more than one very questionable to dangerous, utterly wrong and impossible home experiment for aspiring young chemists described in a book before. Like I said- Do it for the children's sake!

aga - 15-1-2016 at 14:40

Ah feck.

So it's another idea i got to to put on my 'Make It Exist' list.

List is so long i doubt i'll get much further than anti-gravity before i die, and the list is quite long.

Maybe best to put 'Longevity' to the top spot.

BromicAcid - 15-1-2016 at 17:25

Sulfuric acid from sulfur dioxide and manganese salts (as catalyst) from oxygen in water.

Link

careysub - 16-1-2016 at 08:44

Quote: Originally posted by Bert  

Of course, I have seen more than one very questionable to dangerous, utterly wrong and impossible home experiment for aspiring young chemists described in a book before. Like I said- Do it for the children's sake!


Do we have a thread on that? Collecting examples of highly questionable experiments being recommended to juveniles would be amusing, and possibly even instructive.

I recall the posting on the silicon tetrafluoride "glass gas" experiment from a 1930s popular science magazine as one such.

Bert - 16-1-2016 at 08:54

We need a thread on that! By all means, get that ball rolling.

I have to dig some books out of a storage locker for my examples, unless I get lucky with Google-

Perhaps include the various adult science teachers who fearlessly take classroom demos where angels fear to tread? The ones who send shrapnel into the front row, or multiple students to the burn ward.

careysub - 16-1-2016 at 10:14

Sound like this could also turn into a "lecture demonstration disaster" thread.

Bert - 16-1-2016 at 10:47

I must lead by example!

And a really good negative example, ideally with graphic pictures is the BESTEST teaching tool.

aga - 16-1-2016 at 13:59

Quote: Originally posted by Bert  
I must lead by example!

And a really good negative example, ideally with graphic pictures is the BESTEST teaching tool.

Correct.

Hurry up and post some photos of stuff being blown up !