EliasExperiments
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Making Anhydrous Aluminium Chloride
Hi,
I have tried to make some anhydrous aluminium chloride from the elements, by reacting chlorine gas with aluminium foil. You can see my process in this
video:
https://youtu.be/ksIXZjbSOkQ
My yield was only 36 % however. Does anybody know how you can improve upon what I did?
Also has anybody tried this with HCl instead of Cl2 and got it to work better?
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Maurice VD 37
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Thank you for the trouble you had in making this video. It was quite impressive. It reminds my own experiments, when I made the same synthesis, a long
time ago. I am not surprised about your poor yield. I even find it relatively high. When I made the same synthesis in my school lab, my yield was even
lower. The majority of the aluminum chloride went away with the smoke.
But I had a fundamental remark. In the first part, concentrated HCl solution hd to react with aluminium metal. The reaction is violent, but it starts
after a couple of minutes, because the protective layer of alumina Al2O3 has first to be destroyed, before aluminum metal can react. Anyway, with this
reaction Al + conc. HCl, you will never obtain anhydrous AlCl3. You will only get AlCl3ยท6H2O, or [Al(H2O)6]Cl3, which is fundamentally different
from AlCl3. AlCl3 is covalent, easily vaporized, and produces Al2Cl6 in the gaseous state. [Al(H2O)6]Cl3 is ionic and cannot be vaporized at all. If
heated it is decomposed into HCl and Al(OH)3. [Al(H2O)6]Cl3 cannot be transformed into anhydrous AlCl3, except by adding thionyl chloride SOCl2. The
inverse reaction is easy : AlCl3 reacts easily with water to produce [Al(H2O)6]Cl3, but this operation occurs in two steps. First AlCl3 reacts with
water to produce Al(OH)3 and gaseous HCl. Then the gaseous HCl gets dissolved into water, and the HCl solution reacts with Al(OH)3 to produce
[Al(H2O)6]Cl3 or its ions [Al(H2O)6]3+ and 3 Cl-.
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unionised
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I suspect the idea of using alcohol to get anhydrous AlCl3 is impossible.
I think alcohol will react with AlCl3
It certainly looked like it reacted when you mixed them.
[Edited on 3-10-20 by unionised]
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Tsjerk
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I think it would help if you insulate the reaction vessel tightly with aluminium foil so more AlCl3 comes over and use way more chlorine. As you see
from the wash bottle a lot of chlorine is passed unreacted. You could use cooling on the collection vessel if you think AlCl3 escapes.
You could also use more aluminium foil, this would increase the surface, catching more chlorine. The yield percentage would go down, but who cares?
Both the hypochlorite and the metal are cheap.
Maybe in this reaction it is more appropriate to calculate the yield based on chlorine produced anyway, as in that case you know how efficient your
setup was... I would stuff the reaction vessel with aluminium I think.
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EliasExperiments
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Thank you all for the feedback!
I am just really confused how a patent can get published with such a high ranking on google, even though it is more or less obvious that it can't
work.
Of course when I use more reagents I get more AlCl3.  But the limiting factor
is more the size of the reaction vessel and my time. So the question is how to make the reaction more efficient.
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Tsjerk
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I think the reaction becomes more efficient when you stuff the reaction vessel with aluminum foil, not all aluminum will react but more chlorine will.
What patent? The ranking on Google depends on how well it corresponds to your search input, that has nothing to do with how trustworthy it is.
[Edited on 3-10-2020 by Tsjerk]
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Mush
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Process for manufacturing anhydrous aluminum chloride
US1818839A
Anhydrous aluminum-sulfate + (anhy.) zinc-chloride
zinc-sulfate regeneration with fused sodium chloride/calcium chloride
CN103708518B
aluminum chloride hexahydrate + thionyl chloride
CN103803622B
A kind of by the method for Aluminum Chloride Hexahydrate Dehydration for Aluminum chloride anhydrous
The present invention discloses a kind of by the method for Aluminum Chloride Hexahydrate Dehydration for Aluminum chloride anhydrous, comprising:
Aluminum Chloride Hexahydrate drying is sloughed most of crystal water by (1); (2) dried aluminum chloride is dissolved in alcohol the alcoholic
solution configuring aluminum chloride, adopts the method for vacuum distilling to slough moisture in the alcoholic solution of aluminum chloride; (3)
the aluminum chloride alcoholic solution after dehydration and ammonia react crystallization generate AlCl 3nH 3; (4) wash, filter, dry AlCl 3nH
3crystal, and dried heating crystals decomposition Study of Deamination is obtained Aluminum chloride anhydrous;
CN1683247A
dehydration with isopropanol
Anhydrous aluminum chloride by Oliver C. Ralston.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006866955
Preparation of anhydrous aluminum chloride by Robert L. de Beauchamp
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006866195
aluminum + iron-chloride
Rev. Adv. Mater. Sci. 28 (2011) 40-43 Jei-Pil Wang, CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS OF ALUMINUM CHLORIDE (AlCl3)BY COST-EFFECTIVE REDUCTION PROCESS
Non of these procedures are really otc but it worth a try.
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