Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Nice complex and precipitate of sodium chlorite

woelen - 14-5-2022 at 12:59

I did an interesting experiment with sodium chlorite and copper sulfate, making a bright green complex/precipitate of copper(II) chlorite. This stuff is quite interesting. I did not make a full web page about this experiment, but it is sufficiently interesting to share it with you.

I recently made a database and an accompanying application, which allows me to add experiments easily and quickly. It is my online lab journal and replaces my paper record.

Here follows the latest experiment: https://woelen.homescience.net/expviewer
You can find the experiment I did by searching by experiment by ID and typing number 655.

DraconicAcid - 14-5-2022 at 13:59

Neat. Have you analyzed the solid material for %Cu?

I love the database idea. Too many times I've done an experiment, and then been unable to find the write-up when I needed it because I couldn't remember which lab notebook I wrote it down in.

Diachrynic - 21-5-2022 at 21:40

Very nice woelen! I checked Gmelins handbook in hopes of finding a definite answer, but it seems that the copper chlorites aren't well explored. They make mention of a salt Cu(ClO2)2, yellow-brown, that is shock-sensitive and turns green within a day. They also mention the basic salt Cu(ClO2)2 ยท 3 Cu(OH)2, not shock-sensitive, but no color is mentioned in Gmelin.

They quote G. R. Levi, C. Cipollone, Gazz. Chim. Ital. 53 I [1923] 200/3. Thankfully, this is available on archive but I have also attached the relevant pages below, even if I don't speak Italian:

Attachment: gazz_53_200.pdf (69kB)
This file has been downloaded 241 times

Amos - 22-5-2022 at 06:04

A yellow-brown salt that turns green in a day sounds very likely to be an anhydrous salt that hydrates in air. Seems to fall nicely in line with other copper chemistry.

Bezaleel - 24-5-2022 at 04:47

Quote: Originally posted by woelen  
I did an interesting experiment with sodium chlorite and copper sulfate, making a bright green complex/precipitate of copper(II) chlorite. This stuff is quite interesting. I did not make a full web page about this experiment, but it is sufficiently interesting to share it with you.

I recently made a database and an accompanying application, which allows me to add experiments easily and quickly. It is my online lab journal and replaces my paper record.

Here follows the latest experiment: https://woelen.homescience.net/expviewer
You can find the experiment I did by searching by experiment by ID and typing number 655.

Great idea! Unfortunately, I couldn't find your experiment. Neither by entering number 655 nor by searching for "copper chlorite". I only got a page saying "No matching experiments found".

woelen - 24-5-2022 at 09:58

Go to the webpage, select "Experiment by ID" in the blue bar at the top of the window and then enter "655" in the search field.

Searching for compounds indeed contains a small error. If there are spaces in it, then the search does not work properly. Searching for only "chlorite" gives results. I'll fix that space issue next weekend.