Sciencemadness Discussion Board

acetaldehyde using ethanol and PbO2 anodes.

mysteriusbhoice - 2-11-2022 at 20:36

PbO2 is normally used for making perchlorates and I wanted to test my new coating in an application that differs since I am sick of perchlorate synthesis and I still have 2kg of it....
The new coating is ghetto blowtorch baked SnO2 doped withy CeO2 and the electrode is alpha PbO2 plated at 2ma/cm^2 then 5ma/cm^2.
The electrolyte is dilute sodium perchlorate and 50% ethanol.

The video is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-2XfoEbtLU

image shows setup:

395d7d75790d61150f7865974d8536f1.jpg - 467kB

Rainwater - 3-11-2022 at 04:37

If you setup a distillation apparatus around your electrolysis cell, you can use the heat generated to collect your product as it is formed.
B.p. 20.2 but wiki list some azeotropes with Diethyl ether.

Mansion jars are nice for this. Tho the lids do corrode quickly
It should help contain the smell aswell. Very carcinogenic stuff.

Would be very interested in seeing what products were formed.
Would be a good video series, isolating the products and calculating yields and reactions

How hot did the solution get? If vinegar was formed, then you could be generating a huge number of byproducts just from heading ethanol in an acetic solution