Foeskes - 3-3-2018 at 17:35
So I made sodium acetate trihydrate by reacting glacial acetic acid and sodium hydroxide and boiling until a thin layer of the salt starts forming on
the surface and I let it cool and scraped the crystal into paper towel and let it absorbed overnight. Next morning it was nothing more than a pool of
slightly viscous sodium acetate solution.
I thought it wasn't hygroscopic.
do I have to use a desecator?
[Edited on 4-3-2018 by Foeskes]
Eddygp - 3-3-2018 at 17:48
Not only is it hygroscopic; it is deliquescent. This means it will absorb so much water vapour from the air, even at non-100% humidity, that it will
dissolve in it!
Foeskes - 3-3-2018 at 18:17
I put it in desecator and pulled a slight vaccum, will it work.
Note: it's a thick glass cookie jar with a acrylic top and a silicone gasket, and my pump is a crude modified car tire inflator, I am also using
silica gel as the desecator.
JJay - 3-3-2018 at 19:49
I have wondered if sodium acetate would be a good desiccant for acetic acid....
clearly_not_atara - 3-3-2018 at 20:04
Sodium acetate also binds to acetic acid, forming sodium diacetate.
XeonTheMGPony - 4-3-2018 at 05:14
Not that I have noticed I have a larg block of it sitting open to atmosphere for well over half a year, sure it absorbed some moisture but no where
enough to liquefy it lol, think buddy there miss-thought and quoted for hydroxide.
some point I'll be dehydrating it to make glacial acetic acid
Foeskes - 4-3-2018 at 06:23
I was really wet and pretty much a gel maybe the water content was enough to dissolve it or something.
The pH was and still is neutral.
XeonTheMGPony - 6-3-2018 at 04:04
I purified mine and filtered it then ruff dried it, and there it has sat for all most a year open to atmosphere and not once has it gelled or been
moist to touch.
I recrystallize in methanol then filter out any impurities that do not dissolve then, recrystallize and filter, then wash with ice cold methanol.
I then distill the depleted mother liquor to recover fresh batch of methanol for the next run.
Product is pure white fluffy crystals of high purity.
weilawei - 6-3-2018 at 06:06
XeonTheMGPony, I'll have to try recrystallizing from methanol. I just finished a small run making sodium acetate trihydrate from vinegar and NaOH, but
the yield was pretty slight (5.04g). I think I lost a good deal of product (4/5 of it roughly) in the recrystallization due to its extreme solubility
in water. I kept the mother liquor, so I'll see what else I can get out of it.