Sciencemadness Discussion Board

White Phosphorus

rocketman - 12-9-2021 at 21:29

Hi all, Is it possible to remove white phosphorus from water, dry it (really fast?) and tranfer to ether? Any other way? Thank you.

woelen - 12-9-2021 at 23:19

You could take it from the water, put it on a piece of paper tissue and transfer it to a little ether, swirl a while and transfer it to another fresh amount of ether. Water is somewhat soluble in ether, so the first rinse makes the amount of adhering water very low and as an added bonus, you have less adhering liquid (ether is more wetting and does not form droplets on the surface of objects).
Be careful with this though. If the white P ignites, then your ether also will inflame! So, do this outside on a place, where a little fire does no harm.

BromicAcid - 13-9-2021 at 03:55

You could also put it in a flask and pull it under vacuum to evaporate off the water.

Triflic Acid - 13-9-2021 at 18:00

Repressurizing that chamber sounds like a lot of fun

B.D.E - 14-9-2021 at 08:07

I think it's better to just transfer it into a beaker with dry inert solvent, then to another one and then to the ether.

B.D.E - 14-9-2021 at 08:09

just for curiosity - why do you need dry wp in ether?