guy
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Ammonia and 'Chlorine tablets'?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C0yHUr-UFhM
They said "chlorine" and ammonia, but I don't get it. Is that a chlorinating tablet?
It looks like NO2 gas is being produced.
[Edited on 11/20/2006 by guy]
Edit by chemoleo: Title.
[Edited on 21-11-2006 by chemoleo]
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BromicAcid
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The white gas makes me think something like Ammonium Chloride (One of the replies has this to say "ammonia chloride u idiot's,if u inhale that stuff u
will pay fo it.that's a leathal gas"). The reaction products are likely some crazy mixture of things, nitrogen oxides I would guess from the colors
and maybe some nitrogen trichloride floating around too. Those kids are lucky that OTC ammonia is only 3% concentrated or so, otherwise they might
have a very large problem. They do this a couple times though and their throats start to burn and they might stop on their own.
What exactly is going on here. Is it a chlorinating tablet, likely, but it might be a brominating tablet. Some of that 'smoke' could be vaporized
water from the heat of reaction.
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Odyssèus
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Most chlorine tablets are either calcium hypochlorite or 'stabilized' chlorine which is chlorinated cyanuric acid, IIRC the three hydrogen atoms have
been replaced with chlorine atoms. Bromine tablets are similar.
Perhaps somone with more expertise could speculate further on the reaction products.
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franklyn
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Once again not being a chemist my input here is dicey at best. The video
is a whole lot of nothing and it is not even clear exactly what is meant by
"chlorine and ammonia". Given that something colorless is poured out from a
bottle that may be Ammonium Hydroxide onto something equally colorless
says little of what the reactants are. Copious white smoke suggests aqueous
HCI (Muriatic acid) and the household ammonia. See thread here _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=134#pi...
The Ammonium Chloride fumes formed are irritating but not lethal or else I and
a lot of others would not be alive. This is N O T true of the other in evidence.
The ensuing brown smoke is more troubling, it is evidently nitrogen dioxide
forming, since this cannot form in ambient conditions by any known process
reacting Ammonium Hydroxide alone, this implies the presence of nitrates.
See thread here _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6838#p...
.
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guy
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That gas looks very very much like NO2 gas. Someone should definetly try this an test it. If it can produce NO2, thats amazing.
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woelen
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This indeed is amazing. The tablet looks VERY much like 20 g TCCA tablets, which I have at home. I cannot imagine how TCCA would give brown gas/smoke
with ammonia. Tonight I will try some TCCA with ammonia and see what happens. What could happen is that some NO is formed and that O2 from the air
oxidizes this to NO2. NO is oxidized to NO2 immediately by oxygen.
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woelen
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I just did the experiment and it is really amazing. I took pure TCCA (appr. 1 gram) and dripped some dilute ammonia on it (appr. 10% household stuff).
This gives a lot of white fume and a lot of fizzing, just as in the video. When almost all ammonia is used up, some green gas (chlorine) is formed. I
also obtained yellow droplets of oil, which have higher density than water. I was a little scared, I think these are droplets of NCl3.
Next, I did a second experiment, with a large excess of ammonia. This yielded a lot of colorless gas and also some white fume. The colorless gas most
likely is N2, there was no other smell than ammonia.
So, I think that with small amounts of ammonia, NCl3 is formed, Cl2 and N2. With excess ammonia, N2 is formed. The mix also became deep green/yellow.
I now absolutely can imagine the formation of the red/brown fumes. If those guys used a brominating tablet instead of a chlorinating tablet, then I
absolutely can imagine formation of bromine, especially at the moments where there is not so much ammonia anymore.
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guy
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hmm maybe those kids just generalized it as chlorine when it could have actually been a brominating tablet. That does make more sense to say Br2 is
formed.
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woelen
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I finally have some BCDMH (1-bromo 3-chloro 5,5 dimethyl hydantoin, brominating tablets for swimming pools). This stuff is very hard to find in NL,
but now I have some of the material, in the pure state. Brominating of swimming pools is not allowed in NL, that's why it is so hard to obtain this
chemical over here.
I tried the experiment as shown in the video, using 1 gram of BCDMH.
When excess ammonia is used, then a lot of white smoke is produced.
When a small amount of ammonia is used, then white smoke is produced, but also a lot of bromine vapor.
The reaction is similar to the one with TCCA, but much less violent. 12% NH3 gives a lot of fizzling and hissing with BCDMH, but with TCCA a sharp and
loud crackling noise is produced, which is really scary.
My general impression is that TCCA is more reactive/energetic than BCDMH, not only with ammonia, but with any reagent. E.g. 10% HCl gives a lot of
chlorine bubbles with TCCA and the reaction is quite vigorous. With BCDMH there only is a very tame reaction, there is no production of gas and the
liquid becomes yellow like piss.
The reaction BCDMH+NH3 can be used for a great chemistry demo with plain 5% household ammonia. I'll make a video of the reaction and post results
here.
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mewrox99
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Hey woelen can you also show us the video of TCCA + NH3 I'd like to see it.
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woelen
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There was a video on YouTube, but it is removed (link in first post of this thread). I did the experiment myself with smaller quantities and made
videos of that. See the following webpage (the reaction with ammonia is in the last part of the webpage):
http://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/exps/raw_material...
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woelen
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I updated the page on TCCA and also added some experiments with BCDMH. Just click the link in the above post and go downwards. It contains a few nice
videos of reaction of BCDMH with formation of NH4Br-smoke and bromine vapor.
[Edited on 6-9-10 by woelen]
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blogfast25
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The video posted by 'Guy' (above) seems to have been removed from UToob for violation of terms.
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