jdurg

Based upon your drawing, I do have to give you one warning, however. Make 100% ABSOLUTELY SURE that the flame doesn't backfire into your nozzle. Inside the nozzle is a perfect stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, and if for some reason the flame gets sucked back inside, you'll wind up with a violent explosion and shrapnel going all over the place. (You generally don't have to worry about this with typical fuels because the only thing in the fuel line is the fuel itself. The only ignition is when the fuel reacts with atmospheric oxygen. In this case, the fuel line contains both hydrogen and oxygen so the fuel can ignite within the fuel line itself and result in a nasty explosion).

Making elemental Na from NaCl is not easy to accomplish without a great deal of chemistry experience, nor is it economical or safe. At the temperature needed to melt sodium chloride, any Na you create will be in the liquid form which will cause it to react VERY quickly and violently with the slightest bit of oxygen and/or water in the air. Also, chlorine gas is produced at the other electrode and unless you can keep the chlorine gas completely away from your sodium, you will wind up with a very nasty explosion due to the molten Na reacting again with the chlorine. (Not to mention that chlorine itself is a very nasty substance). In the industrial process for making sodium metal, they use the Down's Cell which you can easily look up in Google. However, if you are asking how to make sodium metal from sodium chloride, then you will most likely not have the experience or resources needed to make a 'Down's Cell'. (Christ, even if you do have a ton of experience you probably wouldn't have the resources available).

Yeah. HCl is very water soluble so it's not going to be escaping from the bromine which should remain as a dark liquid on the bottom of the water.

Good god! Though how many of those are actually stable at room temperature and under "normal" conditions? (I.E. does exposure to light cause it to form another one, or is it only a certain allotrope at a high temperature, etc. etc.)

The more elements you put into your collection, the harder it is to have a 'favorite'. I think phosphorus is an incredibly neat element only because there are so many ways you can have it, and each way has its own very unique features. White phosphorus is a nice, wax-like substance that will ignite if it sees air. Red phosphorus is a bright red substance that smells a bit like a burnt match, and if mixed with some potassium chlorate will ignite if struck by a hard object. Black phosphorus is basically an inert crystal which has many properties similar to that of graphite, and looks very much like graphite too. Violet phosphorus looks a bunch like black phosphorus, but has a glossier sheen to it and you can see parts where it is converting into red phosphorus. It's pretty interesting seeing four different allotropes of the same substance. Carbon is pretty similar, as I have some graphite, amorphous carbon, and diamond. Hard to believe that they are all the same thing, really. (That can also be said with my red and crystalline Selenium). I'd love to get some yellow arsenic, but the stuff apparently decomposes back into standard gray/metallic arsenic upon exposure to light. If I had to pick a "GROUP" of elements to call my favorites, it would be a toss-up between the alkali metals and the halogens. While the PGMs are all very beautiful elements, you routinely see them in their pure forms in the way of coins, jewelry, and bullion. However, you don't always get to see the alkali metals and halogens as pure elements. Seeing chlorine gas get made right in front of your eyes is an amazing thing to see. Seeing pure, clean, unoxidized sodium metal is a treat since you can see that it is indeed a metal. Generally, when you see sodium you only see the oxidized, corroded form. If you do see the clean metal, it's for a few seconds after you've cut into it.

Again, I still say that it would be easier, cheaper, and more efficient to do this with calcium hypochlorite, sodium bromide, and hydrochloric acid. Plus, all three can be found in one place (your local pool and spa store) and you don't need to do anything with the three items other than mix them together. (I.E. you don't need to dilute anything, concentrate anything, or purify anything).

Asking me what my favorite is would be like asking a parent who their favorite child is. I just cannot make that decision. What my favorite element is changes depending on my mood. I will always have a soft spot for bromine because it's so neat looking, and chlorine because I actually made and purified it myself. But depending on what time of the day or week it is, my favorite element can change to just about anything.

All the bleach I've seen/used has been sodium hypochlorite. The only 'bleaches' I've seen that use calcium hypochlorite have been for treating pools and spas.

Ca(OCl)2 is also much more stable than sodium hypochlorite. Do a quick and easy google search. You will quickly find that upon heating sodium hypochlorite decomposes into sodium chloride and sodium chlorate. It basically oxidizes itself. This is not rocket science here, so I stand by my statement 100%.

Bleach is a solution of sodium hypochlorite which has a formula of NaOCl. (HOCl is hypochlorus acid. NaHClO does not exist). At elevated temperatures, however, NaOCl will decompose into NaCl and NaClO3 (3NaOCl -> 2NaCl + NaClO3). So when you boiled your bleach solution, you probably converted some of that hypohclorite into the chlorate and chloride. Your white salt you have is most likely a mixture of NaCl, NaOCl, and NaClO3.

But if this is done is solution the HI will immediately dissolve and form iodide and hydrogen ions. As a result, there won't be much production of iodine at all. People tend to forget that the hydrohalic acids are VERY water soluble. So unless you are generating them from an anhydrous salt, a good deal will dissolve into water and form the ions again.

Also, bromine has a density of about 3.17 g/mL, so it is 3 times as dense as water and will NOT form a layer on top of water.

It is my beliefs that the punishments set out in regards to pedophilia should really be subjective and handed out on a case by case basis by the judge. As it stands right now, a 38 year old who knowingly has sex with an 8 year old is judged the same as a 21 year old who unknowingly has sex with a 17 year old (As in the 17 year old appeared far older in age and did not disclose this information with the 21 year old). In both cases, the same social and judicial stigma is placed on the offenders, but it is clear that the 38 year old comitted a MUCH worse offense than the 21 year old. That's why I believe that in a case like this, and in virtually all judicial cases, the penalties should not be hard coded to the definition of the crime. They should just be a guideline and the judgement should be made by the judge.

I also don't think that mixing HCl and a solution of KI will result in the production of a hell of a lot of iodine as HCl is not a very good oxidizer.

Yeah, that would work, but you'd still have to deal with an excess of heat generated with sulfuric acid as you'd need it to be somewhat concentrated to get the reaction working properly. (In dilute solution, sulfuric acid isn't a massively good oxidizer like hypochlorite or aqueous chlorine is). It's much better in terms of ease and yield if you can generate the bromine in one step as opposed to two or three. (I.E. go from 2Br- straight to Br2 as opposed to Br- + H+ -> HBr, then oxidizing HBr to Br2 while some of it escapes as pure gas or reverts back to H+ and Br-).

necrosis is the death of living tissue.

Mixing NaBr, H2O2 and H2SO4 is one of the dumbest things you could ever do, and most scientists are quite smart enough to know that you should never do that. NEVER mix hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid. When you do that, you will lose a good deal of bromine in the form of HBr gas which will bubble out, and the extremely high temperature of the reaction vessel will cause any bromine you have to instantly vaporize away. In addition, the sulfuric acid will form a very nasty and dangerous compound with the hydrogen peroxide, and may itself be reduced into choking, toxic sulfur oxides. There is absolutely no benefit in producing elemental bromine in that manner. In fact, if you try it that way you'll most likely wind up wasting a lot of time, money, and your health. A better method of producing bromine is to oxidize the bromide ion via chlorine gas production. In fact, one trip to a pool supply store will get you everything you need. You can either generate the chlorine gas separately, or you can just generate it in-situ which is probably the easier thing to do. Just get some powdered super shock (Caldium hypochlorite), sodium bromide tablets, and hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. Mix the hypochlorite and sodium bromide in some water so that everything will be nicely dissolved. Then slowly add the hydrochloric acid. You will notice that the solution will start turning a reddish color as free bromine is liberated. You want to add the HCl slowly so that the solution doesn't overheat and you don't generate too much chlorine gas at one time. You will also want to have an excess of acid so that the bromine will remain as the free element. Then all you have to do is cool off the solution and suck out the bromine from the bottom of the beaker with a pipette. Just make absolutely sure you do this outside.

Also, carbon is by FAR anything but inert.

Heh. You need quite a bit more volts than 1.25. I was just giving that example to show that the fluoride ion will not be oxidized into fluorine so your overall electrolysis will be nice and clean. Fluoride ions cannot be oxidized in an aqueous solution. That is why I suggested using them. For the electrolysis, it's best to just have one anode and one cathode. Splitting everything up into multiple anodes/cathodes will just reduce the power each electrode is receiving and will probably slow down the reaction. NaF is a solid crystal akin to NaCl (Table salt). It's just that NaCl can be oxidized to chlorine in an aqueous solution while NaF cannot be oxidized in an aqueous solution. Naf is pretty danged cheap, but the only place I can think of to get the stuff is a chemical supply house.

Well, the only red gases I know of are bromine or nitrogen dioxide. NO2 may arise if there were some nitrates/nitrites in the salt that you were generating the HI from, while Br would appear if there were some bromide ions that were oxidized. What you may also see, if you used H2SO4 to create the HI, is the triiodide ion forming since H2SO4 is such a strong oxidizer that it will oxidize the HI into elemental iodine. The mixture of the iodine and iodide ions results in the formation of the red triiodide ion. This is why when HI is made, it's best to do so using concentrated phosphoric acid since phosphoric acid is a very poor oxidizer and will not oxidize your HI.

Probably the BEST salt you could use would be sodium fluoride. NaF is very soluble in water, and the standard oxidation potential of water is -1.23 volts while that of the fluoride ion is about -2.87 volts. As a result, water is MUCH easier to oxidize than the fluoride ion is. This means that you won't get any contamination at the anode or cathode, and you'll be left with relatively pure hydrogen and oxygen. The chloride ion has a SOP of -1.36 which means that it should be more difficult to oxidize than water, but because the values are so close and because of various other things going on, the chloride ion is easily oxidized to chlorine gas. This also leads to the formation of various other compounds and generally makes a big mess. So by using good electrodes and a sodium fluoride electrolyte, you should be able to have a successful electrolysis.

Yes, but the fact that it's soluble means that it's not going to ppt out of solution into these bright yellow crystals that YT is describing. Any 'yellow' color would most likely be due to some free iodine that is trapped into the crystal structure, and if that's the case, then you certainly don't have pure NaI.

Don't use NaCl. You will get a bunch of chlorine since in order to make the electrolysis even remotely efficient, you need a good deal of NaCl. Sodium bicarbonate is just as effective. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The same amount of ions are produced so there is no difference there.

I believe he stated 'I was wondering why it was sold in pharmarcies' with the emphasis on the 'wondering', as in 'I was WONDERING why they sold it in pharmacies, and now I know.'

Hmmm. I can tell you with 100% certainty that sodium iodide is not a yellow crystal, however. I also know that it is completely soluble. So I'll have to pick up some tincture this weekend and give it a try...........