darkflame89 - 2-4-2004 at 01:53
Saw a bottle of calamine at my pharmacy. I checked up my books and they said it was ZnCO3. I need to obtain it pure but the bottle contains menthol
too. Anyway to get rid off it??
Incidentally, is there anyway to recover zinc metal from zinc carbonate?
I am a fish - 2-4-2004 at 02:21
In my experience, medicinal products are generally poor and expensive sources of laboratory chemicals.
Zinc oxide is cheaply and readily available from pottery suppliers. If you particularly want to make the carbonate:
1. Dissolve an excess of zinc oxide in sulphuric, hydrochloric or nitric acid.
2. Filter out the excess zinc oxide, to give a pure solution of the zinc salt corresponding to the acid used.
3. Add sodium carbonate solution, to precipitate out zinc carbonate.
A brief overview of methods to extract zinc from its compounds can be seen here:
http://www.webelements.com/webelements/scholar/elements/zinc...
A readily available source of zinc metal is the casing of zinc-carbon batteries.
Organikum - 2-4-2004 at 02:38
zinc-oxide is even more readily available at paintstores - zinc-white as pigment for white paint.
For the rest see what the fish wrote - he is absolute right.
darkflame89 - 2-4-2004 at 02:41
Unfortunately, where i live do not have such luxury. But I see the point about zinc from batteries. Can i just peel of the outer layer and react with
it?
Saerynide - 2-4-2004 at 02:42
I thought the can on the Zn/C batteries was a zinc alloy?
I am a fish - 2-4-2004 at 02:52
Technically yes, but the zinc content is usually over 99%.