Hexaditon

Hydrochloric acid is hydrogen chloride dissolved in water.

Are you sure you can use carbon rods for the ClO3- -> ClO4- cell? I know you can for Cl- -> ClO3 .... but I was under the impression that the current required is too high for carbon electrodes and would errode too quickly? I dont know I'll have to look later. I have notion that it would still have amounts of KClO3.... Aspirin, again what is your contamination roughly? Is it like half and half? Or is there trace amounts you're trying to get rid of? This changes your approach. If there are large quantities of KClO3 one could approach it with an electrochemical cell; if they're trace, one would probally further clean it up with solubility differences. Check the numbers I put on the first page... you'll probally need to find more numbers for KClO4 (if worst comes to worst you can find them yourself empirically?). Example of how I'd approach this.... If there was a 10% contamination - for a 100 gram sample you put it in a bit more boiling water than what is required for dissolving 10 grams of KClO3 at ... say 10oC. Bring the temperature down and a lot of precipitate will come out... majority KClO3. You're losing some KClO4 in the process since it stays suspended with the KClO3.... just less of it. In fact ... do the math, you might find that between the two piles of powder you make one is quite pure KClO4 and the other is fairly pure KClO3? You might have to look into the temperatures some for optimization. EDIT: Here's a good resource for what YT was talking about. http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Campus/5361/chlorate/chlorate.html It also has some good solubility charts comparing the different salts.

Yes - kinetics... not what the problem is. There is no equilbrium here. So the translation of your answers: 1) I don't know 2) I don't know 3) I don't know k that's all we wanted to hear. I mean you can try to avoid answering the question, that's good - just stop wasting our time with attempts to misinform the forum. I don't think I can say much else. I mean if you have answers - throw them out... but we know you don't have them. We all do. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself? The points are simple: 1. You do not know what you're talking about. I know this. You know this. Everyone can clearly extract this from the thread. 2. By telling a bunch of information that you not only understand, but you yourself say is impracticle for the people of this forum you are wasting the time with the thread in your attempt to look like something you're not. You are not contributing in this manner. 3. Not only are you NOT contributing, but you flow of nothingness is counter-productive. Your attempts to mislead people with your lack of comprehension & understanding and attempts to self-glorification is damaging to the quality of the forum. It pains me to see people like you defaming the idea of 'science'. I can bring this down to a bitter flame-war level and mock your history on this forum. Mock the picture of your "laboratory" that shows the most sophisticated equipment is a digital scale with a .01 resolution... mock mock mock. But I am not here to make you look as lousy as you're starting to look. Perhaps I do that, but that's not my intention. This is a truth issue. It's a pet-peeve to see mistruth spread around like AIDs in Africa, and I see that a few misconceptions instilled in the minds of a few people on this forum is from you. And you persist. If you didn't lie so much, if you didn't bullshit people so much, if you didn't try to come off as someone you weren't - this would not be an issue for the threads here. Now you're not contributing anything new with restating inaccuracies. So I don't think I can tell you much new either. My dear bound to ivy league friend.... -Justin

"My only ideas on this have involved something along the lines of using a specific frequency to excite the atom (perhaps its resonant frequency?) and tuning each laser to half of that frequency, so that at their intersection, the full frequency would be reached, and excitation, and therefore fluorescence, will occur. " I'm limited in my knowledge of the physics of these waves and their resonance. But i'd be under the impression that crossing the lasers and causing resonance would just increase the intensity of the light at that point... the frequency wouldn't be altered (am I wrong?). Perhaps a way around this is using more than two. Let's be hypothetical and say... 50 just for emphasis sake. When they all beam in and cross at a single point - the intensity of the beam is sufficiently less everywhere compared to the one point. So that one point is excited to the point where it's noticable over the rest? I don't know. Just trying to help. -Justin

This is not a kinetics problem... please look at teh definition of kinetics my friend. And if what you say is really true, why would you bring this up if it is not anything that would be useful for this forum? I think you're just appending bs as you go on... No I don't think it - I'm quite certain of it. But allow the detectives of this forum think so critically aswell. It's very obvious from how you're lead into one answer to the next that it's bs'd as you go. So far have you driven from the practicality of your original statement that progressing this further is only discrediting you as a valuable resource.... But that's no sweat off my back I suppose. I'm just trying to bring truth. You neglected the requests. I do not know anything compared to you since with such assertions you make you MUST know what you're talking about. And if you know so well what you're talking about my questions should not be so hard for you to answer. 1)Tell the forum, for aspirin's benefit at what conditions this would apply (temperature/pressure) 2)With that could you tell us how that is still fractional distillation 3)Why the equilibrium of the 'gasses' be advantagous in seperating KClO3 and KClO4? -Justin

Does it? Tell the forum, for aspirin's benefit at what conditions this would apply (temperature/pressure) With much confidence you must know what you're talking about. Inform us. Along with that could you tell us how that is still fractional distillation - a PHYSICAL seperation technique. And why you're at it.... why the equilibrium of the 'gasses' (which is never in equilibrium in the first place - it proceeds in one direction... synthesis does not happen.... it's not like boiling a potassium hypochlorite in water.... I'm not sure if that even happens NaOCl -> NaClO3 in boiling water.... perhaps its similar) be advantagous in seperating KClO3 and KClO4? -Justin

Again.... there is no chemical equilibrium with a physical process and a chemical process. Vaporization and decomposition are not in equilibrium. If you are referring to decomposition and staying in an instable state... I don't want to be rude and bluntly say wrong again.... but yeah. KClO3 -> KClO + O2 is NOT in equilibrium. It proceeds in only one direction. And again a principle based on equilibrium does not apply. But if you have some quantitative groundbreaking information that states otherwise. Produce it. I'm interested in seeing such numbers. The logical is still lacking however. -Hexaditon

In two words. Neither evaporate.

Clearly the concept of physical seperation is surpassing you. The whole point of seperation is we do not WANT any moles of gas produced upon any sort of decomposition. We do not want decomposition. Decomposition implies .... well... decomposition. Follow the topic. We are trying to seperate KClO3 from KClO4. We are not trying to decompose or chemically alter any of the compounds... that would not be fractional distillation anyhow. Fractional distillation is a physical seperation technique. There is nothing chemical about it. Decomposition does not = Fractional distillation. How you drew such conclusions is beyond me... As if boiling an egg was a physical change. There is no chemical equilibrium between a physical process and a chemical process. That is a duh. I'm sorry I mean... That should be intuitive. Le Chatelier's principle does not imply to this situation since this is NOT an chemical equilibrium issue.

Hmmm.... I must disagree with science to back me up. First statement: You say that significant pressure will prevent the chlorate and perchlorate from decomposing. Yes at room temperature .... However these solids must be vaporized and in any pressure this will cause decomposition before it reached that state. Bringing up the pressure would bring up the boiling point (as well as melting point) and decomposition will still become the spontaneous reaction before it can ever vaporize. Make KClO4 vapor... and I think universities will be looking for you. It doesn't happen like that. Anyhow yes yes I assume we both have agreement on the fact that impurities would arise from fractional crystallization. However, you don't seem to realize .... such would also arise in fractional distillation. Notice the keyword >Fractional< one has a tendency to evaporate more so than the other... but both liquids in fractional distillation vaporize to some extent. This is why seperation of ethanol and methanol is so difficult. The boiling points are so similar you need a fractionating column to seperate them more effectively and even then there are great impurities. It's the same problem going both ways. I can only judge by all your posts... but I constantly find myself tutoring principles of distillation in one aspect or another. Should I stress reading the distillation chapter of Vogel's 3rd (pratical organic chemistry) again? I mean you don't have to read it... but I learned a great deal, many people have learned a great deal. You can too. It's a marvellous resource. That goes for anyone interested in understanding the principles behind distillation (among many many other things, that book is wonderful). -Hexaditon

Please explain to me as someone who doesn't understand - as a student: How would, physically... talk to me as if you're going to teach me something .... fractional distillation work any better in this case over fractional crystallization. I will give you the benefit of the impossibility and even say that fractional distillation would be possible! (Which understanding anything about the process... the molecules would go through a chemical reaction under the theoretical thought conditions completly blowing your product; i.e. OXYGEN WILL BE LIBERATED .... no longer chlorate and perchlorate.....no longer a useful PHYSICAL seperation technique) But I'm playing this "make believe" game for a second so you can explain to me how the former would be more effective. -Hexaditon

Do you mean fractionally crystallize it? The chlorates and perchlorates will not distill at atmospheric pressure.... they are hardly in a liquid form before they decompose to liberate oxygen. I challenge you to produce a vacuum that can handle that sort of BP reduction. I will truly be impressed. If you do mean fractionally crystallization it's already been the technique metioned ("solubility separation method" - Gilded). Anyway off of that... I'll try to be helpful. I have a chart for the solubility of KClO3 in water: Temp oC : g/100mL h2o 0 : 3.3 10 : 5.1 20 : 7.3 30 : 10.2 40 : 13.9 60 : 24.0 80 : 37.7 100 : 57.7 I don't have a table for KClO4 but I have a couple values @20oC it has a solubility of 1.8g/100mL h2o Yeah.... I wouldn't say water is the best solvent for this application. Maybe you can look for charts for other solvents. Allow me to heed warning on one thing though! I do not know for what application you're trying to seperate the two nor how much impurities you have of each... (being more specific would allow us to be more helpful). However there will STILL be TRACE amounts of KClO3 through solubility seperation (without more than huge losses in KClO4... if we can make it that far). So if you're worried about the KClO4 with a sulpher based composition I would probally say you'd be pretty safe from autoignition (use a tad bit of BORIC ACID [found at drug stores as a insect killer thing in powder] which acts as an inhibitor in the reaction that causes autoignition with KClO3 + S). If you're making something like Ammonium Perchlorate and worried about the impurities developing NH4ClO3.... Yeah I'd recommend scraping it for fireworks. However, that's just me. All I'm saying is the impurities will still be there. -Hexaditon

Allow me to redirect you on another path of thought. 90% Sulfuric acid is considered diluted in itself. Sulfuric acid according to this text I'm holding is considered to be atleast 18M.... I don't know the validity of this number (you can translate it into precentage by weight). The thing is that there's a certain concentration that H2SO4 is considered to be concentrated (as any acid... i.e. HCl is considered concentrated at 35%). Sulfuric acid is considered concentrated around 95%. So when the solution has a concentration below that mark it is considered diluted sulfuric acid. My Roebic's MSDS gives warning "Contains sulfuric acid" where as my Drain Rooto has a warning "Contains concentrated sulfuric acid". That tag is really just a relative number to give you an idea of how bad is it (suppose to treat one with more care than the other.... storage for battery acid is a bit different that storage for industial 98% h2so4.... the line had to be drawn at a certain number; how those lines are drawn I'm uncertain). 90% H2SO4 is tagged diluted just the same as battery acid. The other 10% of the solution is primarily water with additives. -me

I pointed out the two I have in my possession and I have found around myself. Just for you I will go over to my lab and get the dyed one.... one second... Roebic: Drain Flow Blended Sulfuric Acid Drain Opener. Here's the MSDS: http://www.roebic.com/pdf/DrainFlowMSDS.pdf Sulfuric acid in this one is 90% according to MSDS, it's the first one I obtained before I found my other (it contains black additives). This was obtains from Lowe's Hardware. Rooto "Professional Quality": Professional Drain Opener The MSDS is no longer online or I didn't find it with a quick search. You can titrate it to find the exact concentration, however it was 95% or so when I used density tests (density tests reported about 99%, however additives make up for the rest). This was obtained from Ace Hardware (about a month ago so I know it's still present) Home depot once carried something, I never obtained it; it does not carry it anymore in my location. Other brands that I've heard, but do not have in my possession now can be found with more search. As stated, once again, because I love repeating myself, go into a hardware store and go to the drain opener section and look for any wrapped in a plastic bag. Go home check the MSDS and see if it is what you want. It's about $10 per quart. Roughly. -Hexaditon

Battery acid is around, call around. Some auto-stores don't like to sell it because it's popular for meth labs, but that is RARELY a problem. Although in all honesty, if you're living in a drug-run town that could be a problem... which I'm sure some people encounter. 95% Sulfuric acid is sold commercially as mentioned... however as also mentioned there are additives in the acid. The implications in this statement is the additives are used to absorb heat evolution and etc. It is still VERY dangerous, and cannot be used for septic tanks and plenty of other problems. There is good reason that it is the only drain opener in plastic baggies. Reference MSDS if one is in doubt. Companies make the MSDS available online. What was said by jdurg is VERY important. In one sentence: KNOW YOUR CHEMICAL. Some chemicals don't like some setups. The general rule is to use glass. However there are exceptions (i.e. concentrated phosphoric acid will attack silicate at certain temperatures). So the best advice for dealing with chemicals is knowing the chemicals. On to bumping. As I mentioned earlier in this forum, having a practical organic chemistry book (atleast as reference) isn't a bad idea. I suggested Vogel's 3rd because you can obtain it free and it's IMMENSELY comprehensive. One of the first topics it discusses is bumping and techniques to diminish the problem from heating techniques, to porous pellets, to little glass u-tube thingies that do something rather.... Anyhow I'll try to conceptually explain bumping. Granite the mechanics are a little more complicated and I am overgeneralizing the source of bumping.... but it is conceptual. Bumping is when the pressure of the bubbles boiling are higher than the atmospheric pressure causing very chaotic boiling and splashing. How does this happen? Look at it like this... You have a cup of water sitting in the sun. The atmosphere pushes down on this cup of water to keep it from floating away and keeps it condensed. Everything has a characteristic vapor pressure... That vapor pressure increases with an increase in temperature. When the vapor pressure overcomes that of the atmospheric pressure.... you got vaporization - the molecules will leave the liquid and be expelled into the atmosphere in gassous state. This temperature (thermal kinetic energy) in which the composition can overcome atmospheric pressure is typically referred to as a boiling point (making sense eh?.... see how vacuums reduce the boiling point?). Now we have this cup - and we apply heat to the BOTTOM of the cup. Boiling point for water is 100oC of course... this is the point where the vapor pressure overcomes atmospheric pressure; however, when the bottom of the cup reaches 100oC exactly ideally speaking it will not vaporize. Think think think. It's not overcoming only atmospheric pressure, but the hydrostatic pressure of the water on TOP of it. If it's a big barrel of water the water can be what I believe is called 'superheated' at the bottom because it is under much higher pressure than that on the top of the solutions. This is fluid physics. Weight of water pushes down on bottom water causing increase in pressure at bottom. Ok so it doesn't vaporize at 100oC.... no no no it gets hotter... superheated. There is a point though that it DOES overcome the hydrostatic pressures of the water on top of it... and what do you think will happen? A bubble forms with the vaporized, superheated water that and rises to the top of the fluid where it is expelled into the atmosphere. Say what? What's bumping? The bumping is due to the fact that the vapor pressure is much higher than that of the atmospheric pressure causing a violent thrusting release. Anyone ever experiencing this knows that it can get pretty messy and even release acoustic energy in "pops". Typically however, on a home lab scale - this isn't incorporated until you get into heavy or large or very hot solutions. It is good knowledge to have in such an event. Boiling acids (sulfuric acid is relatively viscous to water and inheritely can have this problem) is an exceptional danger due to acidic ... dangers. Again that was conceptual and not excatly material to write a book with. la la la -Justin