Jor
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organic solvents for inorganic chemistry?
I am starting with home experimenting soon. My focus is on the aquaous inorganic chemistry (e.g. coordiantion/ redox chemistry.)
Of course I'm planning to buy mineral acids, several salts etc.
But i now have spotted a seller who sells salts but also organic solvents like benzaldehyde, carbon tetrachloride (tetra) , Formamide,
dichloromethane, chloroform, etc.
Now my question was, would any of these solvents be useful in a homelab wich has limited ventilation etc. for example CCl4 is toxic and might be
cancer causing. The rate of evaporation would definatly decide whether i can even handle it here. Do these solvents have any use in inorganic
chemistry, wich can be executed at home (i have no fumefood or large garden, so i can only do mL/mg experiments , because of gasses).
Joris
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woelen
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These organic solvents are not that interesting for inorganic chemistry experiments. Hardly any metal salt dissolves in those solvents. The only
solvent, which is somewhat interesting in inorganic chemistry is DMSO. This dissolves quite a few metal salts and it allows a whole new chemistry to
be performed and colors are very different, when compared to aqueous chemistry. DMSO is not very volatile and not really toxic. You only have to be
careful with solutions of salts in DMSO. Although the DMSO itself is hardly toxic, it provides an excellent transport mechanism for metal ions through
your skin into your body. Where aqueous solutions hardly go through the skin, solutions in DMSO quickly go through the skin and anything dissolved in
the DMSO goes with it.
For the rest, especially if you are starting exploring inorganic chemistry, then first start with aqueous chemistry and get the main inorganic acids
like HCl, H2SO4 and HNO3, a few simple organic acids like CH3COOH and citric acid, and some main bases like NaOH (or KOH), NH3 and Na2CO3.
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12AX7
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MeOH, EtOH, Et2O, acetone, etc. are useful to force salts out of solution, wash and dry them.
Tim
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Eclectic
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DMF, and NMP are some other polar low volatility organics that might be usefull for inorganic chem. Butyl Diglyme has unusual solvent properties for
some inorganics. It can be used to extract gold from aqueous solutions. Watch out for organic solvent solutions of Ni salt. some people can be
VIOLENTLY allergic!
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chemkid
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i was reading about displacing with methanol/ethanol etc. can some one explain that to me?
Chemkid
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12AX7
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They dissolve in water, causing lower solubility of the salt in solution. Some salts are more strongly soluble than the solvent is miscible with
water; these will instead cause a seperation of layers despite the similar polarity which prefers to mix the water and alcohol. For this reason,
concentrated salt solutions are sometimes used to crudely dry less soluble organic products, but that doesn't matter much here. Many salts
precipitate in an excess of alcohol or other polar solvent, making this convienient. Likewise, alcohol and ether can be used to wash the water and
alcohol (respectively) off the precipitate, and ether's low boiling point evaporates quickly.
Tim
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not_important
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There can be surprises with organic solvents and inorganic salts. Make a strong solution of cobalt chloride in a few ml of water, then slowly - a few
drops at a time - add acetone.
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DeAdFX
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Certain lithium salts are very soluble in organic solvents like lithium perchlorate
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not_important
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For that matter, silver perchlorate is soluble in just about everything, although some solvent react with it - is it a solution if it's dispersed
throughout the room?
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turd
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Water rules - cheap, ubiquitous, stable, liquid at RT, non-toxic. And there's still many books to be filled about inorganic chemistry in aqueous
solution.
I don't like working with DMSO, ethylene glycol and glycerol because they tend to be quite unstable. DMSO is easily reduced to DMS (ugh!) and the
latter two split off water to give a nasty stinking organic brew (yuck!). If I have to avoid water, I try to use methanol.
Of course every serious inorganic lab should have ethanol, acetone and ether in order to wash the products or to do crystallisation tricks mentioned
above.
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Jor
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Yes, I'm getting ethanol and actone but no ether. I really don't like the stuff (peroxides , etc.).
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