metalresearcher - 16-10-2012 at 08:17
According to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2CO3 this compound is hard to isolate if at all.
It seems in water it dissociates into water and CO2 and can nearly only exist in HCO3- and CO3 2- anions.
No physical and chemical properties are known.
What are your opinions ?
AirCowPeaCock - 16-10-2012 at 08:18
There is already a thread on this forum that goes into this in detail.
Pok - 16-10-2012 at 16:15
which thread?
H2CO3 can be isolated and is very stable (in a pure state):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid
http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c724117/publications/loerting00-...
http://phys.org/news/2010-12-carbonic-acid-isolated-gas-phas...
The half life of pure H2CO3 is 180.000 years at room temperature! Water catalyses the decomposition, which is further driven by autocatalysis. 1 or 2
molecules of water are enough to start the reaction. That's why it's hard to isolate. But it can be isolated in a pure state. And the molecule H2CO3
also exists in the rain, tap water, and so on (1% of the CO2 exists as H2CO3)...
A photo of carbonic acid:
http://www.git-labor.de/forschung/chemie-physik/gasfoermige-...