No Precipitate when there should be one?

[frosch45]

I decided that I would just see if this worked, I did some reasearch, and I thought that it would, but, well....

 

1) I took some magnetite, Fe3O4 (30 g), put it in an Earlenmeyer Flask, and added an excess of HCl

2) Reaction did proceed very slowly, after about 20 hours the solution had turned a clear yellow color. I assume that this yielded 1 part FeCl2 and 2 parts FeCl3? (also water)

3) I then added an equal amount of Ammonium (aq) (calculated using (M1)(V1)=(M2)(V2))

4) The solution only turned a more clear color, but there was no precipitate of Fe3O4.

 

 

Am I expecting something that is not supposed to happen or did I do something wrong?

 

PS trying to see for ferrofluid , I could grind it up using a metal grinder, but it bothers me that I don't know what happened

 

thanks in advance

 

UPDATE: really wierd, there seems to be an orange cloud with a definate shape occupying a small amount of space (it will not settle even after 30 min) on a clear and colorless background. also, I added some excess ammonia (aq) and there were 2 layers that developed (meaning the 2 colorless solutions--ammonia and the one containing the orange cloud--have different densities)

Edited May 30, 2008 by frosch45
updated info