Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Wrongly wired chlorate cell

Wrongly wired chlorate cell

Deluxbert - 13-1-2018 at 09:36

So i had my cell running for a long time no problem but yesterday after checking i rewired it wrong. So it ran one day with the titanium as anode and the MMO as cathode.

As one can expect the titanium is gone which isnt that bad imo because it was cheap anyways.
Now my questions is. From my reasearch the MMO should be unharmed by the cell or is there anything that could have happened to it.

Also therese a huge amount of fine white percipitate. Is that titanium dioxide or something different? It reacts acidic so i expect it to be titanic acid.

I pulled it through a sintered glass filter and then wanted to clean it out using some weak cleaning solution (H2O2 10% + Sulfuric) and it turned dark orange. What the hell is that stuff?

[Edited on 13-1-2018 by Deluxbert]

[Edited on 13-1-2018 by Deluxbert]

Deluxbert - 13-1-2018 at 10:12

Doesnt look very inviting.
Probably peroxo titanium complex http://lanthanumkchemistry.over-blog.com/article-catalytic-d...

[Edited on 13-1-2018 by Deluxbert]

violet sin - 13-1-2018 at 19:16

I did that one time. Very disappointing as I had just made the cathode from plate, cut by dremel w/ disk, buff polished etc. It was a nice mate to the mmo strip I had at the time. I got about 1/2-1/3 of it back with the small scale experiment power was low. The pattern left was interesting for sure.

I did keep the TiO₂. My plate was Gr 2 not the 6Al4V alloy. There was a distinctive peach color to the powder while moist. Lighter colored when dry.

The MMO strip was fine in my case. was great because the loss of effort making the cathode still stung. The fun of working till late and finishing tired can be the end of the experiment till parts are acquired.

If you used the alloy grade then colors might be a result of those metals.

Deluxbert - 14-1-2018 at 07:35

Quote: Originally posted by violet sin

The MMO strip was fine in my case. was great because the loss of effort making the cathode still stung. The fun of working till late and finishing tired can be the end of the experiment till parts are acquired.

If you used the alloy grade then colors might be a result of those metals.

Dont really know the exact comp of the titanium but seemed rather pure I it was once crusted up from another cell and I just cleaned it with HCl and nothing leeched from it and it didnt leech any color.. The mesh (at least whats leftover) has a light bronze tan to it now but the TiO2 formed is pure white for me.

I looked some more into it and this really is a Peroxide Tiantium complex i formed. Afterall the white TiO2 dissapeared into the orange solution. Seems rather intersting to me. Nice transition metal colors.

Yeah and to me its not a huuge loss really. Afterall the mesh was cheap and i just build a new cell. But i now i have to work through that gunked up mess to save some of that chlorate that is stuck in the powder. Filtering that is a nightmare so i let it settle.

[Edited on 14-1-2018 by Deluxbert]

woelen - 31-1-2018 at 03:58

The orange material indeed is a peroxo complex of titanium(IV). The white solid is hydrous TiO2.

Too bad this happened :-(