Sciencemadness Discussion Board

is it trick?

CrossxD - 12-2-2017 at 09:26

I can't solve this.......
I have potassium chloride and citric acid and I need make potassium citrate...... and I dont wanna use electrochemistry
some trick that would work with all soluble salts of strong acid to make salts of weak acids :/
can someone help?
Thank you, Cross

Neme - 12-2-2017 at 09:58

Get potassium hydroxide. Easier than making it from chloride.

CrossxD - 12-2-2017 at 10:55

I know but I have sooooooo much of potassium chloride and beside this I dont have any use for this....... I already have potassium nitrate :D

stoichiometric_steve - 12-2-2017 at 12:30

there is no trick. you're SOL.

BromicAcid - 12-2-2017 at 13:50

Add citric acid and potassium chloride to water and dissolve. Boil to drive off the hydrogen chloride.

KCl + C6H8O7 ----> HCl + C6H7O7K

Test for reaction completion by looking for silver with silver nitrate. Keep a log like the one below:

Day 1 : Still lots of chloride
Day 2: Still lots of chloride
Day 3: Am I even making any progress
Day 4: Getting better
Day 5: Yes, better
Day 6: I've been fooling myself, still lots of chloride

It could work in theory but in practice it might be a bear.

DraconicAcid - 12-2-2017 at 14:53

Citric acid is way too weak for BromicAcid's reaction to work. You'd be far better off neutralizing the acid with baking soda, and then finding a solvent in which potassium citrate is less soluble than sodium citrate.

PHILOU Zrealone - 12-2-2017 at 16:54

Electrolyse your KCl into a divided cell allowing the Cl2 to escape (or recollect it into basic water NaOH, Na2CO3 or NaHCO3 to form hypochlorites into the cold and chlorates when into warm conditions)...you will get KOH.

Or warm to red heat some dry KCl with Mg ribons or Al powder...and get some metallic K (beware dangerous chemistry and chemical (explodes when exposed to water)).

Alternatively play with KCl, KMnO4 and exces acetic acid...will generate clouds of Cl2 (beware toxic) , Mn (II) acetate and K acetate...you need a way to take the Mn(2+) away...via precipitation?
React the K acetate with citric acid and boil off the acetic acid.

[Edited on 13-2-2017 by PHILOU Zrealone]

BromicAcid - 12-2-2017 at 17:30

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
Citric acid is way too weak for BromicAcid's reaction to work. You'd be far better off neutralizing the acid with baking soda, and then finding a solvent in which potassium citrate is less soluble than sodium citrate.


I think that was my entire point. Most reactions will happen to 'some' extent, and in this case I would invoke Le Châtelier's principle, driving forward the reaction by removing HCl. But even so, the point of my post, was that it may never go far enough to even make a difference.

JJay - 12-2-2017 at 18:04

You could first form silver citrate, which will react with potassium chloride in a citric acid solution to produce insoluble silver chloride. Then you could remove the water under vacuum and extract the citric acid with ethanol. Then you could recrystallize to purify.

Of course, doing this would require using expensive silver compounds which are unstable and hard to handle, not to mention ethanol and a lot of work, so it probably defeats the purpose of using potassium chloride to prepare potassium citrate. But it is possible.

DraconicAcid - 12-2-2017 at 18:13

Sorry- I had just skimmed your post.

CrossxD - 13-2-2017 at 08:03

as PHILOU Zrealone said I can oxidise chloride to chlorine, but parmangane is quite expensive , so can I use hydrogen peroxide and citric acid to make potassiu citrate and chlorine or are there any other oxidants which are posible to use??

TheNerdyFarmer - 13-2-2017 at 10:50

If you want to find an extra use for potassium chloride, you could mix it with sodium chlorate to make potassium chlorate.

NaClO3+KCl => KClO3+NaCl

Pretty good chemical to have if you want to experiment with oxidisers.

[Edited on 13-2-2017 by TheNerdyFarmer]