Aquiring Powdered Metals!

[xeluc]

Hey! I made some Copper (II) Chloride this past summer and I was thinking maybe I could Do a single replacement reaction to recover my Copper in Powdered form. So I disolved some CuCl2 In water and threw in some Aluminum foil. Sure enough the aluminum decentigrated and a brown precipitate was left on the bottom. I decanted the suposed resulting Aluminum Chloride and Left the Copper powder to dry in a glass cup. I came home for mschool today to find that around the edges of the copper it was green; A clear sign of a Copper salt. It's possible not all the Copper Chloride was converted to Aluminum chloride. Regardless. I filled the cup and decanted some liquid twice more to obtain nothing but pure Copper. I think it's copper. I know it has Copper IN it at least. I heated the powder up until it dried. If there is Copper (II) Chloride in this powder I will not know until it hydrates, assuming there is indedd some there. Anyhow, I was going to wash the copper powder in HCl to get rid of any contaminants. I assume any possible metals or metal compaounds that coudl even possibly be in here would be disolved in HCl and leave pure Copper behnd. So here are my Questions:

 

Will there be Pure Copper left after HCl wash?

 

How fast/will it oxidize? I assume powder would oxidize many tiems faster than a peice of Copper..

 

Can I prevent oxidation without submerging the powder in Mineral Oil?

 

Thanks a lot guys...

[woelen]

Copper powder can well be stored without oxidation, but you have to be sure that the copper is not stored in an acidic liquid.

 

So, rinse with some HCl and then rinse with a lot of water. Finally, rinse with a dilute solution of NaHCO3 (this removes any traces of acid, without itself being corrosive) and finally rinse with distilled water and let dry.

 

In acid, you have the following reaction, due to oxidation by oxygen from the air:

 

2Cu + O2 + 4H(+) ---> 2Cu(2+) + 2H2O

[rthmjohn]

btw, how did you make the copper chloride? I might have to try this experiment...

[xeluc]

Well, there are a few ways. I chose to throw some Copper into HCl. If you do this you will notice that nothing happens, because The hydrogen in the HCl is more reactive than the Copper you jsut put in. So you add some Hydrogen Peroxide to the mixture and walla, it turns a deep green color. You disolve as much copper as you can and then add peroxide until your sure that the Solution is a bright grren color, not dark and dirty. Then you evaporate or boil away the HCl and Water from the mixture (Be sure that this is done under a fumer hood or outside where the fumes will not harm anything!) After heating you are left with a brown Powder. After exposure to moister form the air or added water, the Powder Becomes bluish green, depending on the purity because it acts as a desicant. I thought this was a really cool experiment. Plus, from what I can tell; You can make ANY chloride with this stuff by adding the metal of what you want chlorinated. I've only done this with Aluminum, but as long as you put in a more reactive mteal you should be fine.

 

I also have a question: If I have Aluminum Chloride and I would like to make Aluminum Powder suitable for a Thermite reaction (I'm going to make a ceramic mould thing ) How would I got about it. As far as I can Tell, I have 3 possibilities.

 

1: Heat it to over 100 degrees C. It suposedly decomposes, so wouldnt I get Aluminum That I could pulverize?

 

2: Get a solution of Aluminum Chlroide in a container. Throw in a Hunk of Aluminum and a hunk of Carbon. Connect a battery's Anode to the Carbon, and Cathode to the Aluminum. Unless Hydroxide Ions get in the way (I'm not sure of this), Aluminum should sloth off the Carbon. Maybe

 

3: Get a solution of Aluminum Chloride. Add magnesium ribbon. Wouldn't Aluminum Precipitate out leaving magnesium Chloride?

 

So what would be the easiest way? (Or the one that actually works )

 

Lastly, Is there a good way of purifying aluminum? And Should I be worried about oxidation? Thanks!

[jdurg]

Aluminum chloride will dissociate into aluminum hydroxide and hydrochloric acid in water. So as soon as you dump it in, you no longer have aluminum chloride. You get this nasty gunk of aluminum hydroxide and an acidic solution. Your three methods won't work to produce aluminum metal for the following reasons;

 

1): AlCl3 is VERY hygroscopic. It will readily soak up moisture in the air forming some pretty nasty HCL vapors. If you try and heat it, it will react with the little bits of moisure in the air forming aluminum oxide and hydrogen chloride. It does not decompose into chlorine and aluminum.

 

2): If you place aluminum chloride in water, you get an acidic solution and aluminum hydroxide 'jelly'. Also, Aluminum is a VERY reactive metal. You just don't typically notice that since the oxide coating passivates it quite well. In a solution, aluminum ions will remain and hydrogen gas will be given off. It's akin to trying to form sodium metal from an aqueous electrolysis; it's just not going to happen.

 

3): Aluminum chloride, once again, forms a solution of hydrochloric acid in contact with water and a 'gunky' mass of aluminum hydroxide. Placing magnesium ribbon in there will just result in the production of hydrogen gas. Aluminum metal will not be formed.

 

If aluminum was really easy to make, it would have been produced in mass quantities a long, long time ago. (At one point, it was considered as precious a metal as gold and silver because nobody could figure out how to easily make it).

[xeluc]

Ok, now I'm jsut confused. When I put Aluminum in a Copper Chloride solution, Solid Copper was formed. So that means I had AlCl3. So your saying that would Decompose into Al(OH)3. Well, I didn't get a gell out of this, I got something that was fairly soluable in water. Apon heating, I got an offwhite powder. Doesn't sound like aluminum hydroxode or Aluminum Chloride for that matter.. Can you explain this?

[jdurg]

It is very possible that you have some Al(OH)xCl complexes there.

[xeluc]

Good enough for me, Thanks alot.

[budullewraagh]

just a note: supposedly lead nanodust can be obtained from thermal decomposition of lead tartarate

[jdurg]

just a note: supposedly lead nanodust can be obtained from thermal decomposition of lead tartarate

 

I know that it can be obtained through the decomposition of lead azide as well, though it's not exactly a controlled process and your product may wind up god knows where.

[budullewraagh]

right, so thats why i suggested the tartarate