Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Colour of Copper Carbonate

CoolFool - 7-1-2017 at 07:57

I made Copper Carbonate by reacting Na2Co3(from washing powder) and CuSO4 and filtered out the solution to get blue Copper Carbonate. But many of the sites show Copper Carbonate to be green. Have i acquired impure copper salt?

WGTR - 7-1-2017 at 08:22

When I make this, I use sodium bicarbonate instead of the carbonate variety. With carbonate, I usually end up with some flocculant precipitate that's hard to work with. I recently made some, so here is what I tried: A very dilute solution (pale blue solution) of copper sulfate is stirred at about 70 degrees C, and dilute sodium bicarbonate solution is added drop-wise. Keep it stirring for an hour or two with heat after the addition is complete, or until it stops bubbling carbon dioxide. A pale, greenish, powder will precipitate. It can be washed by stirring with multiple beaker-fulls of water, and allowing a few minutes for the powder to settle out. It should settle very easily, and you shouldn't need a filter to separate it out. I don't remember what color precipitation with sodium carbonate gives, but you might want to try it the other way for comparison. Also, this isn't true copper carbonate, but some basic form of it.

[Edited on 1-7-2017 by WGTR]

Neuro- - 7-1-2017 at 08:32

In my experience, the hydrated form is blue, and the dried form is a more greenish color. You could look a video up on youtube such as the one by Doug's Lab to use as a color reference.

mayko - 7-1-2017 at 08:37

You might look through this thread on the color of *cough* basic copper carbonate
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=50822

Neme - 7-1-2017 at 10:25

Mine looked like this

025.jpg - 1012kB026.jpg - 724kB

aga - 7-1-2017 at 12:02

Ahhh. The beauty of Basic copper carbonate.

Nice job Neme.

PHILOU Zrealone - 7-1-2017 at 12:17

Some people see turquoise color blue, other see it green...
--> Everything is relative ...
--> Especially about taste, smell, love, feelings and colors ...

aga - 7-1-2017 at 12:32

I regard it as beautiful at the moment because it should be an insoluble product of a mixed gold/copper solution i have in a pot in the lab, hopefully eliminating the bulk of the copper and also the HCl/HNO3 as highly soluble sodium salts.

Creditz to WGTR for helping short-circuit the research i was doing to find the best way to go (if it works) !

CoolFool - 9-1-2017 at 07:37

Thanks a lot everybody

zed - 9-1-2017 at 19:54

Umm. Did this last year.

Copper Sulfate.....Tap Water...Plus excess Baking Soda = Insoluble Malachite Green PPT.

I didn't dry it.