soniccd123 - 2-2-2014 at 16:13
Hi fellow chemists!
Let me introduce myself. I'm a brazilian 18 year old chem enthusiast. I have a little more than high school chemistry knowledge (for the brazilian
high school standards), so, i may act as a noob, but surely will try to help if i can =)
Nowadays i'm really into making salts for every element i can find and trying to understand how the processes and peculiarities of them works.
Of course, i do my research and know the basics, but, unfortunately, our scholarship its very poor at inorganic chemistry and focuses mostly at
organic... well, we have the basics obviously, but really, i fell that there is a lot of things that i just don't know, and for experimenting, i fell
lost as i don't know possibilities a lot of reactions.
Because of this, i would like to ask advice for the ones who have more experience on this area.
I have MgSO4 and CaSO4 just sitting here at my garage and i would like to use them for making other Magnesium and Calcium salts.
I obviously though about double displacement reactions using NaOH and then reacting the resulting hydroxides with different acids.
Unfortunately, from what i've this far, these reactions will not occur because of the low solubilities of the sulfates. I did not tried, indeed,
because i would like some advice before doing it.
So, what would you guys recommend me for producing other salts with these ones? Maybe the reactions will work?
Thanks!
Soniccd123
PS: Anyone can suggest a good book on inorganic chemistry? i don't mind if it is in english (most of the chemistry materials that i read are in
english, even when i was at school).
Brain&Force - 2-2-2014 at 16:36
Magnesium sulfate is pretty soluble in water, so conversion to the hydroxide should be no problem. Double displacement is easy with NaOH.
Calcium sulfate, on the other hand, is slightly soluble in water, as is the hydroxide. Their Ksp values are similar and the reaction likely will not
be feasible.
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=14614.0
However, this guy seems to be doing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R9atKBUS8M
Welcome to ScienceMadness!
[edit] I can't recommend any good inorganic chem books, but do yourself a favor and bookmark this site: http://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/index.html
[Edited on 3-2-2014 by Brain&Force]
Metacelsus - 2-2-2014 at 17:35
Sodium carbonate will likely be cheaper than sodium hydroxide (it is where I live), and will work equally well for your purpose (in this case
precipitating magnesium carbonate).
Zyklon-A - 2-2-2014 at 17:41
Sodium carbonate is way cheaper for me ($4.00/6Kg), but he said, "Nowadays I'm really into making salts for every element." So maybe he also wanted
Magnesium hydroxide/Calcium hydroxide, as well as sodium sulfate.
Of course MgCO3 and CaCO3 are salts as well...
[Edited on 3-2-2014 by Zyklonb]
blogfast25 - 3-2-2014 at 05:22
Because of calcium sulphate's small (but real) solubility, treating it with a soluble carbonate should convert it to calcium carbonate which is very
insoluble.
e.g. (NH4)2CO3 + CaSO4 === > (NH4)2SO4 + CaCO3
After washing and filtering the calcium carbonate can then be dissolved in various acids to yield the respective calcium salts of these acids.