synthesis of chlorine dioxide

[hermanntrude]

I want to make chlorine dioxide. I dont have any sodium chlorite but I do have potassium chlorate. perhaps if i were to carefully combone very small amounts of sodium or potassium chloride with potassium chlorate it'd give off the dioxide? It seems like it'd be a feisty reaction, though... it might just catch fire to the dioxide immediately...

[UC]

http://81.207.88.128/science/chem/exps/clo2/index.html

 

Based upon the equations presented there, using, say, 5eq of chlorate and one of chloride, finely ground and intimitely mixed, then acidifying with sulfuric acid should give you a good percentage of the dioxide in the gas.

[John Cuthber]

The last line of that site says "The exact stoichiometry of the reaction, however, can deviate significantly from the last equation, but it always will be a linear combination of the two idealized extremes". It's rather difficult to get pure ClO2 but it's such nasty stuff that diluting it with chlorine might be thought of as a "safety" measure.

If you plan to do this be careful. What do you want ClO2 for?

[cpazchem]

Reduce Sodium Chlorate (or any chlorate for that matter) with a strong acid, my suggestion would be HCl. I know that the reduction works, but i can only guess the equation... Not a good practice, but i am fairly confident in the products.

 

2NaClO3 + 4HCl --> 2NaCl + 2ClO2 + 2H2O + Cl2

 

ClO2 is not very nice, in fact it is quite horrible. Cl2 isn't great either, but in comparison to the ClO2, well, you catch my drift. NaClO3 is also very toxic, and it will kill plants very easily, so watch out for runoff. Obviously, stear it clear from waterways.

 

Have fun