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Author: Subject: Making Hydrochloric Acid
darkurza
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[*] posted on 3-1-2007 at 21:00
Making Hydrochloric Acid


Source Wikipedia and Various Google sites.

If I wanted to make Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) at home, could I do it with these 2 methods?

Method 1:
Dissolved the right amount of Salt (NaCl) into Distilled water (H20) to not have other contaminants. Cut the wires of a cell phone charger and shave the insulation off at the tips so it acts as an electrical source. Tape the wires in a glass jar and connect a piezoelectric igniter into the jar. Fill it up with NaCl H2O and place a cork and a tube on. Plug the cell phone charger in.

electricity
NaCl + H2O -----------> NaOH + Cl2 + H2


In theory, this should cause Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) to form at either the cathode or the anode and Hydrogen (H2) and Chlorine (Cl2) gas should bubble out. Use the tube and some method of draining the sodium hydroxide and salt and water solution and refill the jar with H2O. Then, use the piezoelectric igniter to combine the two gases and dissolve it in water making weak hydrochloric acid. Boil it to get rid of some water and concetrate it.

Method 2.

Get a large wine bottle and fill it up with bleach and an acid (Vinegar, Concentrated Lemon Juice). This should create small amounts of Chlorine gas. Cover the bottle with a syringe and pump out the Chlorine. Next, attach a tube to the syringe and slowly bubble it into a large solution of ammonia. According to Wikipedia, Chlorine catches on fire when passed through ammonia and Nitrogen Gas and Hydrochloric Acid is created. Unless there is a lot of ammonia, Nitrogen Trichloride (NCl3), a dangerous and useless explosive is also created.



Will this work and is there anything wrong with my plans?
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[*] posted on 3-1-2007 at 21:04


H2 and Cl2 will explode when ignited or even when exposed to sunlight. There's already a thread on this.



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darkurza
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[*] posted on 3-1-2007 at 21:43


Quote:
Originally posted by guy
H2 and Cl2 will explode when ignited or even when exposed to sunlight. There's already a thread on this.


I assume doing it in small amounts would lead to smaller explosions that are safe. Sort of like this http://mattson.creighton.edu/Cl2/Photo121.jpeg

Is there anything wrong with my methods of making this? And can you link me to the thread, I'm new here.
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[*] posted on 10-1-2007 at 11:02


It exists other simple way to produce HCl (and even HF) :

Use a 2 liter ceramic flask with two holes : one up to put the matter and one on the side to evacuate HCl.
Put in the flask siilica (powder of sand) and NaCl (common salt) and heat strongly (500°C to 700°C). If you do not get HCl, add a small amount of the mixture silica-water. You should get HCl , collect it in cold water.

The chemical reaction is : SiO2 + H2O + 2 NaCl ------> SiO3Na2 + 2 HCl

Centuries ago people used to prepare HCl using this method.

The interesting point is that you only need very common products.

The hard point is the making of the flask : alternative way is to use a steel cooker , the same some people use to distillate ethanol. Copper is better.

To get HF from fluorite :

SiO2 + H2O + 2 HF ------> SiO3Ca + 2 HF
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[*] posted on 10-1-2007 at 11:13


silicon dioxide water and table salt!?

I assume this must be a VERY strong vessel to take water at 700c!:o




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[*] posted on 10-1-2007 at 13:05


Quote:
Put in the flask siilica (powder of sand) and NaCl (common salt) and heat strongly (500°C to 700°C).


this looks interesting.. but i'm not sure about this, because the MP of NaCl is about 801°C..(is the melt phase of NaCl required for react (better?) with the SiO2????? or both reactants need to be melted?)..
if it's true (500°C - 700°C), i can use this to raise the conc. of my 10% HCl, simple bubbling the HCl gas into the cooled 10% HCl..

but about the heat source: can i use wood to provide the fire? (about 600°C)
thanks..




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[*] posted on 10-1-2007 at 14:44


Is this worth it when you can purchase for 85$ /25ltrs from your local swiming pool shop ???



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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 00:51


You can indeed buy it for quite a reasonable price.

Boiling a hydrochloric acid solution will release a good deal of the dissolved HCl, its like an ammonia solution, ammonia dissolved in water. Cooling the solution down and passing more HCl into it will concentrate it.

H2SO4(l) + NaCl(s) --heat--> NaHSO4(s) + HCl(g)
HCl(g) + H2O(l) (very cold water)---> HCl(aq)
Would be a decent way to do it assuming you can fashion an appropriate apparatus. You also get the NaHSO4 that you can use for other experiments. However, i wouldn't try to make it. I would just buy it. If you happen to form it as a by product though by all means dissolve it in water to recycle it and be kind to the enviroment.

A hydrometer to test your concentration or doing a titration would be a good idea if your going to be using the hydrochloric acid.




So many ideas... too few dealing with chemistry.
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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 00:58


Well, you will found this recipe to make HCl in old chemistry books. People prepared HCl in a retort heated to redness. Even Basile Valentin describes the method.

To know precisely about the reaction you may compute the constant K of the reaction :

SiO2 + H2O + 2 NaCl ------> SiO3Na2 + 2 HCl

Delta H = - RT log K

with Delta H = enthalpie of the reaction.

Delta H = Delta SiO2 + Delta H2O + 2 Delta NaCl - (Delta SiO3Na2 + 2 Delta HCl)

Of course take into account the temperature .

Melting of NaCl is not necessary.

I put the quote of the english chemistry book of my site :

http://albert.cau.free.fr/English/Chemicals.html
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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 07:59


Quote:
originally posted by YT2095 :
I assume this must be a VERY strong vessel to take water at 700c!

Tim, yes... only now i noticed also about water..
BAH! :(

so, al , how you make this procedure ? you add water in small fluxes slowly on the NaCl/SiO2 at 500-700°C ???

Quote:
originally posted by Mental_sam :
Is this worth it when you can purchase for 85$ /25ltrs from your local swiming pool shop ???


unfortunatelly i never found this here (in local swiming pool shop) because the most used (here) Ph-regulator is H3PO4...

[Editado em 11-1-2007 por Aqua_Fortis_100%]




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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 08:33


Well ,

Use a retort with an extra hole in the top.
Put NaCl and silica in the retort and heat to redness.
NaCl which contains a lot a water will dry
Then add small portions of a kind of mud made with silica and water
NaCl produce HCl.

Other old recipe was the heating of NaCl with alun (you may get the product in chinese stores)
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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 08:59


Thanks,al , but about the heat source, wood work fine? ( i have virtually TONS of this in my yard).
Quote:
Other old recipe was the heating of NaCl with alun (you may get the product in chinese stores)

what is this "alun", can you give more details???

thanks.

[Editado em 11-1-2007 por Aqua_Fortis_100%]




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darkurza
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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 19:39


Quote:
Originally posted by al
It exists other simple way to produce HCl (and even HF) :

Use a 2 liter ceramic flask with two holes : one up to put the matter and one on the side to evacuate HCl.
Put in the flask siilica (powder of sand) and NaCl (common salt) and heat strongly (500°C to 700°C). If you do not get HCl, add a small amount of the mixture silica-water. You should get HCl , collect it in cold water.

The chemical reaction is : SiO2 + H2O + 2 NaCl ------> SiO3Na2 + 2 HCl

Centuries ago people used to prepare HCl using this method.

The interesting point is that you only need very common products.

The hard point is the making of the flask : alternative way is to use a steel cooker , the same some people use to distillate ethanol. Copper is better.

To get HF from fluorite :

SiO2 + H2O + 2 HF ------> SiO3Ca + 2 HF


Seems like an interesting method. I will try it once I find a fuel to burn at 800°C. Anyone suggestions? I was thinking of using zippo fluid but I'm not sure the temperature of that. I plan to place a beer bottle with a tube in a cork filled with sand, salt and water into a larger jar (miracle whip jar). Then pour the fuel into the larger jar and ignite the fuel and just wait. I assume HCl(g) will come out of the tube...
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[*] posted on 11-1-2007 at 20:26


Ehh beer bottle? Ah no, you're making glass here, not gonna happen! Copper is a stretch! Heavy steel or better yet, corrosion-resistant alumina, mullite (and other ceramics) or inconel, monel (probably), etc.

There's no way silica is acidic enough with liquid water around to decompose salt. Possibly in an autoclave (where "liquid water" is pushing the definition of "liquid"). Steam passed through a ceramic retort charged with molten salt and sand may produce the desired result.

Phosphoric and sulfuric are both "refractory" enough to produce HCl with ease without resorting to stronger glass formers such as SiO2 or B2O3.

Tim




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[*] posted on 12-1-2007 at 00:37


Alun is potassium sulfate extracted from leaching of some rocks. This compound was very used centuries ago as a basic material to produce nitric and hydrochloric acids.

The old process to get HCl and even HF may be modified today. A retort is not necessary, you may use a tube of refractory material, inside put SiO2 and NaCl , when the tube get redness, so send a stream of H2O vapor and collect at the output HCl in cold water.
The reaction works easily with fluorite (CaF2).

Reaction occurs because sodium or calcium silicate is produced, moreover thermodynamical considerations, as well as experiments, demonstrate the feasibility of the reaction.

I am working on getting sulfuric acid from plaster of Paris (CaSO4) : CaS , then H2S , then S , then SO2, S03.
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[*] posted on 12-1-2007 at 00:52


Heating at high temperature.

With gas the temperature depends on the flow of gas and a good "thermal insulation" : my gas oven is able to melt silver , gold and copper.

I saw people in mexico using used car oil and a compressor to melt aluminium : a hole in the ground, they put a tube for compressed air and a tube for oil. To start the fire, they use some pieces of wood , then they send the oil and start the compressor . After they put the big crucible above
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[*] posted on 12-1-2007 at 04:57


Aluminum melts at 600°C. Butane from a lighter is suppose to burn at 700.
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[*] posted on 8-4-2009 at 07:42


This thread got my attention since short ago my wife has been warned that sale of muriatic acid will soon be forbidden in this country, and I do not like storing up larger quantities of chemicals. So it would be great to make it by myself; but methods requiring high temperatures and very special vessels are currently out of my reach.

So I am getting back to the method proposed at the beginning of this thread (electrolyzing NaCl and reacting Cl2 with H2): is there a safe way to make these gasses react? For example doing it slowly in small quantities, maybe just at the rate at which the gasses are produced by the electrolysis?

And another intriguing question: anybody knows how the human body synthesizes HCl? I can hardly imagine our body producing sulphuric acid as a first step; not to speak of elemental chlorine and hydrogen. But how then is it done?
- A first thought: maybe via phosphoric acid? I just found this on Wikipedia:
NaCl(s) + H3PO4(l) -> NaH2PO4(s) + HCl(g)

(just being confused about the (l) where I would expect (aq): does this mean the acid has to be pure and melted? Then it would not be possible inside the human body...)

And I think phosphoric acid can be prepared from fertilizer containing phosphates? I have to investigate more about this...
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[*] posted on 8-4-2009 at 07:59


Loperamide and Styrofoam will be next. Hey don't laugh...they will cut WAY down on PS based stuffs in guise of some environmental concerns. I think PPA was dealt away with because of FDA “worries” over the possibility that if you ate a handful of it, you might have a .000001% increased chance of having a premature stroke. Just a little exaggeration, but ya get the point. Still, I detect a subtle aire of arrogance and face saving when authorities move slow to classify something which has been ubiquitously around. Not just because of the negative effects of denying it into legit commerce, but because in doing so, they are also tacitly admitting "hey, we were wrong all along, we shouldn't have had this stuff available OTC". Merck index is also very reluctant to sometimes change fundamental information when new, more accurate information comes to light. They are slow to acknowledge, or will simply omit the entry all together. Or sometimes they will stubbornly keep the mistake in, and dig in their heels, feigning passion like a lying lawyer who says "I take great umberage to that!".

OOPS where was I.
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[*] posted on 8-4-2009 at 08:22


Ive not tried it but i had been under the impression that electrolising salt water with a split cell and a porous membrane (like the old clay pot in another container) whould create a solution of HCL on one side and solution of NaOH on the other.. has anyone done this and gotten a result ?

Assuming you can only generate a fairly dilute solution of HCL you may be able to upgrade it by heating one sealed vesle of the dilute solution and bubling it through a smaller volume of cold water.

if you can make that work well and the tards ban it you might be able to make a killing on the illegal black HCL market :D
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[*] posted on 9-4-2009 at 22:10


Hey everyone,

Just so you know there are two threads that have already gone into this pretty in depth, here they are:

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=11954

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2154&a...

Hope this helps
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[*] posted on 9-4-2009 at 22:44


Quote: Originally posted by bquirky  
Ive not tried it but i had been under the impression that electrolising salt water with a split cell and a porous membrane (like the old clay pot in another container) whould create a solution of HCL on one side and solution of NaOH on the other.. has anyone done this and gotten a result ?

Assuming you can only generate a fairly dilute solution of HCL you may be able to upgrade it by heating one sealed vesle of the dilute solution and bubling it through a smaller volume of cold water.

if you can make that work well and the tards ban it you might be able to make a killing on the illegal black HCL market :D


*blinks* Please learn something about electrochemistry. *coughredoxcough*




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[*] posted on 9-4-2009 at 22:51


@bquirky - The sodium ions would head towards the anode, the chlorine ions would head towards the cathode. At the anode, hydrogen is produced (Na is formed which INSTANTLY reacts with the water to form hydrogen and sodium hydroxide) and at the cathode, Chlorine is produced (due to oxidation of 2Cl- => Cl2) There is NO HCl formed (unless you want to take the H2 and Cl2 gases and react them, like I believe may have been mentioned up thread.
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[*] posted on 9-4-2009 at 23:11


DJF90, you mistakenly exchange anode and cathode. Hydrogen is formed at the cathode (-) and chlorine is formed at the anode (+).

@Daddy: This is not a suitable way of making HCl, unless you are VERY patient. Keep in mind that electrolysis is a slow process. Very roughly speaking, at a current of a little more than 1 A you only have one mol of electrons every 24 hour day (for exact numbers, please lookup constant of Faraday). To produce one mol of H2 and one mol of Cl2 you need 2 mols of electrons. This gives 2 mols of HCl. So, for one mol of HCl you need one day of electrolysing at 1 A. If you dissolve 1 mol of HCl in 1 liter of water, you get acid of appr. 3% concentration.

There are many practical problems as well. You need a graphite anode. But this anode quickly corrodes, it pulverises. Another issue is that chlorine dissolves in the liquid fairly well (this makes it possible to make hypochlorite and chlorate by means of electrolysis). The final issue is how to handle the voluminous chlorine gas and hydrogen gas and have them react with each other in a controlled way and get the reaction product dissolved in water without contamination with chlorine.




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[*] posted on 10-4-2009 at 02:04


Heating NaHSO4 with NaCl (in a test tube or flask) is probably the easiest OTC method for HCl production.
I my old chemistry set this reaction was used multiple times to generate HCl gas for experiments, like the HCl fountain which demonstrates how vigorously water absorbs gaseous HCl.




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