Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Chromium hydroxide?

urenthesage - 9-9-2016 at 11:23

I started with a chromium salt, the sulfate I believe and I added ammonium hydroxide trying to create chromium hydroxide which is green. Instead I have a greyish salt with a pink liquor remaining. What have I created
? is it some wierd hydrate that is grey? is it a hexavalent compound? is it crap left over from the sulfuric acid I used to make the original salt?

DraconicAcid - 9-9-2016 at 11:30

You probably have a mixture of chromium hydroxide and an ammonia coordination complex.

urenthesage - 9-9-2016 at 13:11

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
You probably have a mixture of chromium hydroxide and an ammonia coordination complex.


Thanks, though I dont know what Im going to do with it. Any ideas on turning this into a salt that isnt extremely hydroscopic?

Lion850 - 25-7-2020 at 22:01

I wanted to make some chromium precursor to make other chromium salts so I decided to convert some of my chromium iii nitrate into chromium carbonate by doing a double displacement with potassium carbonate.

29g potassium carbonate was dissolved in water and poured into a solution of 56g Cr(NO3)3.9H2O in water. Instead of a chromium carbonate gas was evolved and reading up make me think the following happened:

2Cr(NO3)3 + 3K2CO3 + 3H2O = 2Cr(OH)3 + 6KNO3 + 3CO2

The blue-green ppt was dried on a steam bath for many hours until the weight was stable. The yield was 26g, which is much more than the calculated 14.4g anhydrous. It is probably a hydrate; or maybe not even that straight hydroxide as it seems this salt is not always well defined.

Anyway, it readily dissolves in concentrated HCl so seems it will be good as a feed stock.



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artemov - 26-7-2020 at 00:17

In my synthesis of potassium dichromate from chromium metal, I used sodium carbonate (aq) on chromium sulfate (aq). Lotsa CO2 and a fluffy, hard to settle ppt is obtained. Don't use ammonium or sodium hydroxide as you might overshoot and the ppt will dissolve again.

unionised - 26-7-2020 at 02:47

Some carbonates don't exist, and Cr(III) is one of them.

If you add dilute sulphuric acid and potassium sulphate or ammonium sulphate you should be able to crystallise the alum by slow evaporation