Rattata2 - 23-1-2010 at 01:31
Sorry if this has been already covered. Obviously hydrating SO3 with water will yield H2SO4..but doing so directly I'd imagine is prolly pretty
dangerous since the reaction would without a doubt give off heat, and spitting oleum isn't exactly a good thing :p How would one go about hydrating
SO3 to obtain H2SO4 in a controlled, safe manner?
manimal - 23-1-2010 at 03:14
In industry, they add it to concentrated H2SO4 to make it even more concentrated.
Sauron - 23-1-2010 at 03:51
More precisely, SO3 is added to cold concentrated H2SO4 with stirring, and a refrigeration loop is used to remove heat at a rate sufficient to keep
the product below the bp of SO3 so that redistillation does not occur.
See Merck for the heats of reaction. A little consideration of the stoichiometry, molecular weights and densitiies (and boiling points) will be
revealing.