Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Testing manganese metal

Foeskes - 30-6-2017 at 18:43

About 3 months ago I made "manganese metal" using manganese dioxide thermite.
I am wondering if there is anyway to test if it's actually manganese metal.
I reacted it with dilute Sulfuric acid(with a ph of 2) and I had to boil the solution to get it to react and it reacted super slow(about the speed of iron and hot HCl)

nezza - 4-7-2017 at 07:10

The usual tests for the presence of Manganese (as Mn2+) are to acidify the solution with dilute sulphuric acid. Add either Periodic acid or a persulphate and warm (The latter may need a trace of silver ion (Ag+) to work). If Mn2+ is present it will be oxidised to purple permanganate. Note that this is a test for Mn in solution and if the "metal" has any manganese oxide contamination it will also give a positive reaction.