Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Recrystallization of Calcium Acetate

Glaeydar - 30-8-2017 at 13:37

Is there a way of recrystallizing Calcium Acetate into somewhat nice looking crystals?

Since it's one of these strange substances, where the solubility in water increases as the water cools down and upon addition of another solvent, such as Ethanol it just forms this weird gel, that makes it kind of impossible to recrystallize in a simple way.

Maybe there is just something really obvious I haven't thought about?

clearly_not_atara - 30-8-2017 at 14:33

Have you tried acetone instead of alcohol? Alcohols form complexes with calcium ions but I think ketones either don't or do so much more weakly. Although I don't think "crashing" like this ever makes big crystals.

[Edited on 30-8-2017 by clearly_not_atara]

Glaeydar - 31-8-2017 at 09:07

Well I didn't mean to "crash them out", more like slow evaporation, or slowly decreasing the solubility, but thank you for the tip.
I'll definitely try it.