Sciencemadness Discussion Board

ways to liquidify chlorine at home?

Eri-Eri - 2-9-2017 at 16:01

I have no access to liquid nitrogen or even dry ice, but I want to liquidify chlorine gas into a test tube and such, I was thinking about a sodium chloride+water bath, into a rustic vacuum chamber, but i dont know if will work.

P.S:this is my first post on SM forums, and im not a fluent english user, hope you can understad what I try to say here.

;)

Assured Fish - 2-9-2017 at 17:39

WARNING: chlorine gas is some seriously nasty shit, if you prepare it, do so outside and don't make too much at a time and preferably use a respirator.
Quote:

I was thinking about a sodium chloride+water bath, into a rustic vacuum chamber,

Im not sure what you mean by this. Electrolysis is slow and wouldn't produce chlorine in very high concentration.
If you intend collecting some liquid chlorine, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Chlorine gas boils at -34*C whereas dry ice or solid CO2 is normally around -78*C making it suitable to use it to cool down your test tube and or condenser.

As for generating chlorine. Typically its generated by adding HCl to TCCA, manganese dioxide or calcium hypochlorite/bleach.
The issue is that you will need a closed system in order to do this.
A pressure equalized addition funnel connected to a flask with a gas adapter attached would suffice but im not sure if you have access to this.

This should give you some idea as to the kinda set up that you want for a gas generator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm6neog6XVQ

DO NOT add HCl directly to a flask of TCCA/Hypochlorite and then stopper it.

For condensing it into a liquid, directly gassing it into a test tube submerged in an ice bath may lead to the loss of a lot of chlorine.
An Erlenmeyer flask would be better as it has a narrow mouth and a conical body.
Thankfully chlorine is quite a heavy gas and will for the most part stay in the bottom of the flask while it is condensing.

If you can keep the rate of chlorine generation low enough you shouldn't loose too much out the top.

Another note, when you place your flask into the dry ice bath, it would be best to first cool the flask down in the freezer, thermal stress can be a bitch and it might be enough to crack your flask.

Also if you don't dry the chlorine as it forms you may end up with a lot of ice in your flask with your liquid chlorine.

Please don't kill yourself.

symboom - 2-9-2017 at 17:41

Chlorine gas liquifys at −34 °C and difluoroethane computer duster can drop the temperature to −25 °C it can freeze water and salt mixture as it touched it. Pull a asperator vacuum to drop the temperature lower to condense chlorine gas

He probably means ice water with salt
Computer dusters can produce instant freezing spray
Not as cold as liquid propane but safer to use with chlorine gas

If you dont have access to dry ice paint ball co2 tanks a bit expensive source of co2 but dry ice can be made from it
Also another source of dry ice is a co2 fire extinguisher both soirces are liquid co2 the rapidly expelled to form dry ice snow

[Edited on 3-9-2017 by symboom]

unionised - 3-9-2017 at 00:25

I think it qualifies as one of those experiments that only needed to be done once. The risks from chlorine and exploding glassware are significant.
However, if you really want to do this...
http://www.chemteam.info/Chem-History/Faraday-Chlorine-1823....

ave369 - 6-9-2017 at 00:23

If you don't have the equipment and/or skill to procure dry ice, you probably shouldn't make liquid chlorine. Gaseous chlorine is nasty, but in low concentrations it's manageable. Liquid chlorine is another matter, it is a lot more concentrated, a milliliter of liquid chlorine amounts to LOTS of chlorine gas.

If one can assemble a lab adequate for experimenting with liquid chlorine, one can also make or get dry ice.

[Edited on 6-9-2017 by ave369]

CRUSTY - 7-9-2017 at 09:43

The MnO2/HCl(aq) method is fairly easy, as MnO2 is easily extracted from some alkali cell batteries. However, be careful if you choose this route: I've used this before for a chlorine generator, and it worked fairly well, but not only are the fumes contaminated with HCl, which you have to bubble through a gas washing bottle filled with cold water to eliminate, the reaction also is fairly violent and MUST be contained properly. Overpressure of an apparatus is not hard to do with this reaction.

I would recommend using a stoichiometric excess of MnO2 with this method too, because HCl is unbelievably prone to suckback, and you will end up with a lovely washing-bottle-soup in your reaction vessel if you aren't careful.

All in all though, making liquid chlorine is not a spectacular idea. Even if you can reliably store it, it's just not a great plan. If you do out the math, 1 mL of Cl2 at 0 C (as a liquid at 1 atm since I couldn't find anything on chlorine's density below 0 C), which would instantly flash to a gas, equates to roughly 0.47 liters of Cl2 gas. Imagine you had this chlorine stored in a 10 mL vial and your cooling system failed. 0.47/0.01 L = 696.79 psi, so you would end up with a vial trying to contain 700 psi of pressure. Sure, it would probably fail way before that, but I'm just playing the worst case scenario. It would still be catastrophic if your chlorine were to hit its boiling point under containment. Not only could you have an explosion on your hands, you would have a serious toxic gas issue. A lot can go wrong with chlorine, and I don't mean to catastrophize, just be careful.

SWIM - 7-9-2017 at 19:24

If you really want to do this, maybe you should try ammonia first.
It's still pretty nasty, but it's MUCH safer than chlorine and has a similar boiling point.

If you can't do ammonia, you probably cant do chlorine either.

And if you can't do ammonia without it really stinking the lab up, then you probably can't do chlorine without dissolving one or both of your lungs (I don't know about you, but I use my lungs a lot, and I'd really miss them.)

This is what some of the old pros here call a 'scouting run', testing the theory out before you commit a lot of expensive reagents and time to it.

Or in your case, testing out the theory before you bet your lungs on it.

Eri-Eri - 7-9-2017 at 21:36

Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
If you really want to do this, maybe you should try ammonia first.
It's still pretty nasty, but it's MUCH safer than chlorine and has a similar boiling point.

If you can't do ammonia, you probably cant do chlorine either.

And if you can't do ammonia without it really stinking the lab up, then you probably can't do chlorine without dissolving one or both of your lungs (I don't know about you, but I use my lungs a lot, and I'd really miss them.)

This is what some of the old pros here call a 'scouting run', testing the theory out before you commit a lot of expensive reagents and time to it.

Or in your case, testing out the theory before you bet your lungs on it.




Wise advice, at first I felt really really confident about this, excited too, but now I realize that was a bad and stupid idea for someone that is just jumpimg from theory to practice, Im going to try your ammonia "trial", if I fail im going to serously re-think the chlorine thing (even now Im going to indefinily postpone that), cause is not a joke, its serious, just for answers like this Im in this forum, theres a lot of hobbyst chemist, that believes they know a lot but in matter of fact they know nothing, and chemistry is a beautiful art, but also merciless when it comes to mistakes.

thanks to everyone who taked their time to answer me.

MrHomeScientist - 8-9-2017 at 06:58

I'd contend that ammonia is almost as bad as chlorine, really. For me at least, one whiff of even fairly dilute ammonia is an instant, severe headache. It may not have the same long term effects of chlorine, but it's still not pleasant to work with at all. Just start at a small scale and be in a well-ventilated area or outside, preferably on a windy day. Good luck!

CRUSTY - 11-9-2017 at 06:38

Also, one of the best things you can spend money on is a full-face respirator, specifically the ones you can switch out the cartridges on. Order some 3M 6006 Multi-gas filter cartridges ($5.00 per cartridge), they filter chlorine gas, something that I can verify from experience. Pretty cheap for a life-saving device.

AJKOER - 12-9-2017 at 15:13

OK, Cl2 dissolves in CHCl3 and CCl4, so you can have a liquid form of chlorine to work with, but still generally experiments performed at low temperatures.

See, for example, discussion at https://books.google.com/books?id=JE6GAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA916&...

There are health issues associated with the solvents CCl4 and CHCl3, and I would not still recommend experimenting unless you are a professional lab worker with experience, proper equipment and safety gear.


Panache - 19-9-2017 at 05:10

Chlorine is not that toxic, depending upon your definition of course. In a few lungfuls of 'well tainted with chlorine' air a nausea will onset that will last around 6-12 hours. It feels pretty shit. They followed 2000 returned diggers from WW1 who had significant exposure and no long term health effects were noted. In hospital admissions for chlorine poisoning the protocol is wait it out, attempts have been made insufulating a bicarb aerosol to neutralise the HCL generated in the lungs but generally this proves not worth it.
I find lying on a couch with my head lower than my lungs helps but its probably all in my mind. Respirators are a danger as the smell of chlorine will alert you to even a minor leak.
Without dry ice forget it, but dry ice is incredibly easy to make, do you know anyone who works at a pub? The beer gas cylinders are CO2, simply tape two or three socks around the outlet hose and turn the thing on, after about a minute the sock will be full of dry ice. When I liquified some chlorine several years back for shits and giggles I just had a glass tube leading directly into a 1L reagent bottle that was surrounded by dry ice in one of those freezer insulated bags things used for bringing ice cream home from the supermarket. I just went slowly, I don't think I even smelt much. I collected about 50ml, the closure on the schott bottle contained the pressure once I brought it to room temp with barely a leak (if I smelt close to the lid there was an undeniable chlorine whiff either diffusing through the PP lid or around the closure.
its worth doing, the colour of pure elements I always find unique, it a kind of yellow green without looking green at all. its not viscous at all, rather flows like water. I never did freeze any.

Panache - 19-9-2017 at 05:12

Chlorine is not that toxic, depending upon your definition of course. In a few lungfuls of 'well tainted with chlorine' air a nausea will onset that will last around 6-12 hours. It feels pretty shit. They followed 2000 returned diggers from WW1 who had significant exposure and no long term health effects were noted. In hospital admissions for chlorine poisoning the protocol is wait it out, attempts have been made insufulating a bicarb aerosol to neutralise the HCL generated in the lungs but generally this proves not worth it.
I find lying on a couch with my head lower than my lungs helps but its probably all in my mind. Respirators are a danger as the smell of chlorine will alert you to even a minor leak.
Without dry ice forget it, but dry ice is incredibly easy to make, do you know anyone who works at a pub? The beer gas cylinders are CO2, simply tape two or three socks around the outlet hose and turn the thing on, after about a minute the sock will be full of dry ice. When I liquified some chlorine several years back for shits and giggles I just had a glass tube leading directly into a 1L reagent bottle that was surrounded by dry ice in one of those freezer insulated bags things used for bringing ice cream home from the supermarket. I just went slowly, I don't think I even smelt much. I collected about 50ml, the closure on the schott bottle contained the pressure once I brought it to room temp with barely a leak (if I smelt close to the lid there was an undeniable chlorine whiff either diffusing through the PP lid or around the closure.
its worth doing, the colour of pure elements I always find unique, it a kind of yellow green without looking green at all. its not viscous at all, rather flows like water. I never did freeze any.