bromine is too sweet.

[jdurg]

I have an ampoule of bromine in my collection, and I have it out here on my desk near my window. The window is closed and locked, but there is a chill coming through there. The top of the ampoule, which is sticking up out of my holder, is exposed to that chilly draft. You can see little droplets of bromine condensing where the cool air is hitting the sealed ampoule. If I put my finger where the droplets are forming, the heat from my hand makes them evaporate. But if I wait a few minutes, they come back. That is too cool!

[budullewraagh]

bromine is truly an amazing element. among my favourites actually. unfortunately i have yet to make some, although that will change very soon, as the chems and labware i ordered came today:)

[jdurg]

Good luck with that. At least with bromine, in comparison to chlorine, you can easily see the stuff when it's being made. The vapor is so dense and dark, and has such a vicious odor. Just make sure it doesn't touch skin, or anything made out of aluminum. For long term storage, either a sealed glass ampoule, or an amber glass bottle which is tightly closed with the aid of Teflon tape and then placed into another container and stored in the freezer is the best bet. (It's actually neat seeing it freeze. It's an amber colored solid which melts into the soupy thick liquid which vaporizes into the deep red-orange gas. God this stuff is cool. All the halogens are cool cuz they have their colors.)

 

I was also thinking about the fluorine generation again. I think the decomposition of teflon powder may work. If you have a really long, like a 60 cm long tube, you could heat it up to just about as high a temperature as it can go. You would then keep it at a red hot temperature for quite some time and place it in a box filled with argon gas in order to cool. You would also have open vats of sodium silicate in the 'dry box' to absorb any water. Now you would go and set up an ampouling apparatus. This would have your vacuum pump ready to suck out all the gas in the tube. You would then put the teflon powder in the bottom of the tube and start the vacuum to get rid of any air and water and argon in the tube. Now you would heat the bottom portion of the tube containing the teflon. This should decompose it to fluorine gas and carbon providing that your teflon is a high quality. The fluorine gas will immediately rise up to the top of the tube. When you see the black flecks of carbon on the sides of the tube near the teflon powder, you could stop the vacuum and seal off the top of the tube. There would now be a VERY low pressure of fluorine gas in the tube. You could continue to heat the teflon powder and have it decompose into the fluorine gas which would rise towards the top of the tube. Finally, you seal off the tube in an area that contains only fluorine gas. The gas would be nice and dry and really pure. Fluorine doesn't attack glass, but hydrogen fluoride does. This method of generating fluorine would all but eliminate the presence of hydrogen fluoride, therefore the glass ampoule would work. I truly think this is doable.

 

I had put it off for a while after reading the MSDS of teflon and seeing that it decomposes into HF and various hydrofluorocarbons. But then I realized something. Those decomposition products listed on the MSDS are for open air decomposition. In a closed vessel with no air and no hydrogen containing gas in there, it can't decompose into an appreciable amount of hydrolurocarbons or HF since the teflon molecule is composed of -[F2C=CF2]- monomers. I only wish I had the apparatus to try all this...........

[budullewraagh]

i'd be careful of the fluorine.

 

with regard to the bromine, what happens if you seal it in a 60mL glass bottle?

of course it gains impurities, but im just curious as to what? bromine oxides???

[Gilded]

Bromine forms some amazing compounds too. Boratsine or diborane is a good example.

[jdurg]

Well, bromine VERY easily vaporizes at virtually any temperature, so if you have a small amount in a large bottle, it will pretty much entirely evaporate into a gas. Bromine will also attack just about EVERYTHING. If you have it a bottle with just a cap, it will eventually eat through the cap and leach out and corrode anything around it. I had initially purchased 10 mL of bromine and it was constantly leaching through the bottle and corroding the hell out of the steel container the bottle was stored in. I had the cap on super tight and full of Teflon, yet it still moved through. I then had about half of it ampouled into a glass tube and sealed shut. It has remained in the tube and not leached out at all. There is no odor coming from it, and the amount of liquid has remained the same. (The gorgeous vapor looks great in there, however.) If you can only store it in a glass bottle, I highly suggest keeping it in a freezer. This way the bromine will solidify and will have far less of a chance of leaching out and corroding everything. (I would also suggest not putting this in the same freezer as your food. lol. Pick up a small fridge with a freezer compartment and keep it in there).

[jdurg]

Bromine forms some amazing compounds too. Boratsine or diborane is a good example.

 

Ummm...... I think you've got Boron and Bromine confused.

[Gilded]

Whoops. Well, this one goes straight away to the "Times I Couldn't Think Clearly Due To Sleep Deprivation" archive.

[YT2095]

The vapor is so dense and dark' date=' and has such a vicious odor.

[/quote']Bromine originated from the greek word Bromos meaning, Stench!

 

the stuff has a perfectly Horrid odour, you`ll smell it before you see it!

 

 

(just a little unrelated History for you)

[Gilded]

Heh, osmium is a relative to bromine in this aspect, since its name comes from the Greek word meaning "smell" (osmos or something), because of the awful osmium tetroxide probably.

[jdurg]

Bromine originated from the greek word Bromos meaning' date=' Stench!

 

the stuff has a perfectly Horrid odour, you`ll smell it before you see it!

 

 

(just a little unrelated History for you)[/quote']

 

 

Oh yeah. I'm quite aware of that tidbit of knowledge. A lot of the elements come from greek/latin words which describe them. Chlorine from the greek 'kloros'(sp?) meaning 'green'. Hydrargyrum from the latin for 'liquid silver'. Iodine from the greek 'iodos' meaning 'violet'. As mentioned before, osmium from the greek 'osmre' meaning 'stench'. Hydrogen from the latin/greek 'Hydros' and 'Genes' meaning 'water maker'. A lot of them are pretty pertinent.

 

 

 

(BTW, if you don't know what bromine smells like and you're wondering, here's a great description. Bromine smells like skunk odor mixed with super concentrated bleach. It has the horrible smell, and is very bleach-like. Horrid, horrid stuff.)

[Gilded]

Hmm, perhaps even a whole thread should be dedicated to the discovery of elements and compounds and their cool names. Btw, if I recall iodine's name comes from a similar word as "iodos", but the translated version was "orchid blue" or something. Quite a bit of nitpicking, especially when I remembered the osmium thing wrong.

 

Fact of today: The name of oxygen comes from the Greek words meaning "acid generating" (similar name to hydrogen, as jdurg mentioned). However, the name was and still is a mistake because it was thought that all acids contain oxygen, which isn't true (for example with HCl).

[YT2095]

is HCl(g) an acid though? or is HCL(aq) the acid?

[jdurg]

That's a tough question. I believe that HCl(g) will still act as an acid if involved in a reaction. It may also depend on the definition of 'acid' being used. I was always told that an acid is a compound which will donate H+ ions when involved in a reaction. So I do believe that HCl(g) would be considered an acid. (Since pure H2SO4 is still considered an acid, as are a LOT of anhyrous organic acids).

[YT2095]

I only ask for the sake of clarity, some acids AREN`T acids until (aq) or better water added

 

I`m wondering if that`s what made the Ancients think that way?

 

 

consider SO3 or Olium.

[Gilded]

You can't really figure those guys out. Even Cavendish thought at first that hydrogen is a gas coming from a metal.

[YT2095]

You can't really figure those guys out. Even Cavendish thought at first that hydrogen is a gas coming from a metal.

ya know, when ya think about it, have you ever wondered that in maybe another Hundred or so years time, the ideas that we hold so dear as "True" in Chemistry maybe looked upon as "Awww bless em, they hadn`t got a clue"

 

I know I think about that sometimes

[Gilded]

Heh, you're probably right about that YT. Chemistry is one science where the progress is and has been quite phenomenal.

 

Edit: BTW, from bromine (this time really bromine, NOT boron ) comes to mind a case (long time ago though) when a 7th-9th grader almost got his hand amputated when some bromine was spilled on it. Pure bromine is quite scary.

[jdurg]

I only ask for the sake of clarity' date=' some acids AREN`T acids until (aq) or better water added

 

I`m wondering if that`s what made the Ancients think that way?

 

 

consider SO3 or Olium.[/quote']

 

Well, if you go by the definition of an acid being a 'substance which will donate an H+ ion in a reaction', then SO3 would not be an acid because it has no H+ ion to donate. So SO3 is not an acid, and when it is added to water it becomes H2SO4. HCl, and all the other haloacids really, can donate their Hydrogen atom in a non-aqueous environment, therefore they can techincally be considered acids.

 

I think what defines an acid is like trying to define reactivity. There are so many different definitions that it can drive ya batty.

[Gilded]

"I think what defines an acid is like trying to define reactivity. There are so many different definitions that it can drive ya batty."

 

Current acid models are probably one thing that the scientists of the future will laugh at, hard.

[YT2095]

I agree

 

I was taught something along the lines of "an acid has a replaceable Hydrogen Ion"

and then I encountered Lewis Acids and that blew my little world apart

[Gilded]

"I was taught something along the lines of "an acid has a replaceable Hydrogen Ion"

and then I encountered Lewis Acids and that blew my little world apart :)"

 

I recall you saying that you have your doubts about Lewis' research because a lot of it was based on ammonia.

[YT2095]

Yup

[jdurg]

If anyone wants to buy some bromine, here's a GREAT auction on E-Bay. Seems very reasonable for the amount offered, but I'd have a better storage solution handy for once it arrives. Good photos too of a great deal of bromine.

[Gilded]

Hmm, nice looking auction. The bromine + Al experiment looks cool too.