Oleum - 18-2-2005 at 12:42
Hey everyone. I thought of this new (or maybe not new) way to make iron oxide for purposes of the thermite reaction but am not sure if it will work.
You put HCl and H2O2 together and add iron. The H2O2 oxidizes the outer surface of the iron, which is then immediatly consumed by the acid, and this
repeats over and over. I have made a bunch of copper chloride using this method. Once you have the iron chloride in solution, you add sodium hydroxide
to precipitate out the iron hydroxide, which is then heated to drive off the water and leave iron oxide. Anybody done this? Any thoughts?
The_Davster - 18-2-2005 at 15:05
I have done that, but a bit different. Steel wool dissolved in slight excess of hydrochloric acid, carbon particles filtered out. You now have a
clear greenish solution. NaOH is added and iron hydroxide precipitates out. The iron oxide is allowed to settle and the upper layer of water is
decanted then fresh distilled water is added. This process is repeated 4-5 times. Hydrogen peroxide is then added which reacts with the iron
hydroxide to form iron oxide which can then be filtered out and dried.
EDIT: Remembered that this was mainly based on frogfot's method
[Edited on 18-2-2005 by rogue chemist]