Mystery Chemical

[psyco_1322]

Oh gee thanks for that ittle highlight. Just start taking one apart, its a pretty strong smell.

[WarezWally]

I'm fairly sure that it was HCl + some iron chloride.

 

I just poured it on some old concrete to clean it up.

[Picric acid DOES taste bitter!]

Mystery chemical... Ive got a chemical i know the name of and i am pretty certain that it has potential in pyro, but i just cant find any information on it whatsoever.

 

We're talking about Ca(ClO4)2, that is calcium perchlorate. Ive found some (impure though) as a pool-cleaning agent, and i wonder if anyone has ANY experience/information on it.

 

PS. I havent bought it yet, i just spoted it on a shelf in a "home depot"(swedish equevalent).

[GalFisk]

Calcium perchlorate is hygroscopic, and from what I've found normally contains 4 molecules of crystal water.

It's very water soluble, maybe it can be converted into potassium perchlorate the same way it's done with sodium perchlorate from electrolysis cells?

I live in Sweden too

Where did you see it/what was it called?

[TheSidewinder]

Just off the top of my head, but.... if properly dried might it be a decent oxidizer? Although.... you said it's not pure Calcium Perc. Hmm.

 

I'm also wondering what the Calcium might add to the reaction in the way of any coloration, should it be useable.

[tentacles]

Calcium would be an orange.. It might be possible to convert to potassium perc through some means.

 

Something like...

 

Ca(ClO4)2 + K2SO4 > 2KClO4 + CaSO4

 

Your biggest problem would be separating the results, you would need a fairly dilute solution as the KClO4 isn't terribly soluble. The CaSO4 would be easy to filter out with the proper equipment. Was the stuff cheap? Other perchlorates may be possible from the stuff as well. Ammonium perc comes to mind...

 

(NH4)2SO4 + Ca(ClO4)2 > CaSO4 + 2NH4ClO4

[GalFisk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think double decomposition with KCl would work just as well here as with sodium perchlorate, and for the same reason - all possible reaction products except KClO4 are very water soluble, so the latter will precipitate out.

Edit: yes that would work:

Ca(ClO4)2(aq) + 2KCl(aq) -> CaCl2(aq) + 2KClO4(s)

Easy to separate, since CaCl2 is very water soluble.

[Swede]

I'm sorry for drifting OT, but as a kid I read a National Geographic article once called "Mercury Miners of Zambia" or somesuch. Underground, the elemental mercury would either gather (or was processed) into big pools, and there were pics of miners swimming in it. Swimming isn't the correct word, as they penetrated just a few inches into the huge pool.

 

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Images/MercuryMiner.JPG

 

Large pools of Hg + enclosed space + no respiratory protection = Mad Hatters. The toxicity must have been staggering.

 

Back OT! Sorry, this pic is too cool.

[TheSidewinder]

My god. Given what we know today, I wonder how long that man lived. Ouch.

 

That said, I do remember handling Mercury a few times when I was a child, though my exposure was seconds each time. I certainly didn't go swimming in it.

[Pretty green flame]

My god. Given what we know today, I wonder how long that man lived. Ouch.

 

That said, I do remember handling Mercury a few times when I was a child, though my exposure was seconds each time. I certainly didn't go swimming in it.

Well one would think that by working in a mercury mine you will certainly die from mercury poisoning but this is not true in every case. Miners who worked in the mercury mine in my country rarely died from mercury poisoning. Wonder why?

The main reason for this was the geographical layot of the mine and the sorounding minning towns which were situated on the hills around the mine so workers had to walk quite a distance from the mine to get home, the physical activity actually expelled the mercury from their bodies. Quite amazing.

[asilentbob]

On the potassium perchlorate from calcium perchlorate and potassium sulfate note, IMO diluting with water and decanting the clear solution a few times after it has settled would work better than filtering.

[Mumbles]

Are you 100% positive that it is calcium perchlorate, and not calcium hypochlorite? Calcium hypochlorite is a very common pool cleaning agent. It is generally somewhere in the vicinity of 50% pure.

[Picric acid DOES taste bitter!]

Yes, im certain. They had a container of the same brand but with different name that was hypochlorite, so... Off to buy it then, im so intriuged that ill experiment with it anyway...my first perch. compound, btw.

 

As for the swedish readers: Granngården i Umeå, där jag hittade burken alltså.

[Sylar]

I share Mumbles' suspicion.

Why on earth would any company use a perchlorate for pool cleaning? Much better and cheaper alternatives are at hand. The oxidative power may be higher, but the reactivity is ALOT lower ...

 

What's the price?

Perhaps you can make perchloric acid from it ...

Mix with stochiometric watered down sulfuric acid, neutralise acid further with CaCO3 or CaOH, sieve out CaSO4 (plaster) rinse filtrate with distilled water to collect all perchloric acid.

Use acid to make perchlorate of choice :-)

 

NEVER MIX PERCHLORATES WITH SULFURIC ACID MORE CONCENTRATED THEN 50%! HIGH PERCENTAGE PERCHLORIC ACID IS UNSTABLE AND EXPLOSIVE!!!

 

Also for the swedish: Detta är ett internationellt forum, hålla engelsk

[Picric acid DOES taste bitter!]

Actually, there was a swedish guy asking where i saw the can, so... Ill stick to english in the future.

 

As for the price, it was bout 12 $ for 300 g, that is 80 SKR, or 7 €. It was labled "Extra Strong" so i suspect that the oxidative power comes from the perchlorate. Since nobody seems to have experience with the compound, who knows how reactive it is in a water-solution along with the contaminant compounds? (I suspect the impurities are from some catalyst that helps it react with water.)

 

And YES i am certain it was PERchlorate. IIRC 60% pure.

 

PS. Your translation software sucks.

[TheSidewinder]

ALL translation software sucks.

 

If you doubt it, translate from your native language to any other, then translate back. The results are always hilarious.

[Picric acid DOES taste bitter!]

Hehe, i saw that one at school, try "Main screen turn on" from english to german and back again a couple of times!

 

Back to topic then, first of all ive bought the can and experimented with it in its raw impure form. Pretty interesting results with charcoal, but still slow as heck and produces tonnes of fouling (white crud).

 

Second of all, it might be a pain in the butt to purify, as it reacts to water in a slight fizzling manner and gives of chlorine and, i suspect, also oxygen due to the mentioned catalyst (Still got no clue as to what it is, just something solid)

 

And, third of all, it was only 35% perch . However, Ive found it NOT to react with acetone, though, so ill try that method to purify. Keep your fingers crossed!

[GalFisk]

That is interesting. What's the product called?

If it's from Nitor or Alfort&Cronholm, you can find the MSDS here: http://www.alfort.se/sdblad/varu.htm

[oskarchem]

I'm guessing the "smallish amounts of Mg can be harmful" is just a typo? Because mercury symbol is Hg.

[TYRONEEZEKIEL]

Wait... what kind of useful reactions can be made with mercury? I had no clue it was so valuable!

 

I have a big jar of this and its just sitting there. I dont want to go into HE, im not ready for that yet, but I am curious about the possible reactions i could make!

 

[Mumbles]

Not so many reactions, it's just the value of a metal that is liquid at room temp for use in mercury switches, fluorescent lights, and purification of gold.

 

There are a number of fun reactions you can do with mercury salts. Mostly in catalytic amounts though. With metallic mercury you can make amalgams, some of which have interesting reaction properties, such as the amalgam of mercury and sodium. You can also make organomercury reagents, which are usually fairly potent alkylating agents, as well as extremely toxic. They can inturn be used to make organosodium reagents from said mercury/sodium amalgam which are generally more pleasant to work with.

[pyroduck7]

Well ''' let's see, Hmmm... Maybe you can put it in a box marked TOYS and send it to China No really. if you live in the city, they take those kind of chemicals at the transfer station (dump) I had a whole jar of murcury once and called a metal recycling place and they told me to stay the hell away from them with that sh.. I called the City and they told me that the dump had a special area for people to take all sorts of poison and insecticides, lead paint and such because they didn't want people to flush them or toss them in the woods. But seriously I wouldn't keep it.

 

 

mabay thats why it was under the house in the first place, someone ovsley dident want to know abbout it anymore.....

[WarezWally]

Keep your mercury, get a suitable container (glass bottle with a HDPE lid) and decant your mercury into it outside. When your done dip the lit in wax to seal it up and keep it somewhere safe (in another plastic jar in you shed is good)

[Boomer]

There are some fun reactions with mercury that were already done by the alchemists (some died early, YOU better use ventilation):

 

Dissolve it in nitric acid (save some of the solution to pour into alcohol, a spectacular reaction!), and crystallize the mercuric nitrate.

 

Heat the nitrate until it turns red after loosing the nitrogen and part of the oxygen (old pigment, now out of use for obvious reasons). The NOx would be my smaller concern here, too hot and you distill off mercury vapor!

 

Dissolve the resulting oxide in HCl and crystallize the mercuric chloride. This stuff is about as toxic as it gets (short of things like dimethyl mercury, a drop of which *on the glove* once killed an experienced researcher). Even if you don't eat in the lab, HgCl2 goes through the skin and even sublimes as a solid, so don't heat it much to dry it.

 

Now it gets modern, since alchemists had no kitchen Alu foil to turn into aluminum amalgam (easier than with sodium):

 

Crumble pieces of foil to little balls, a little but not too tight. Put them in a dilute (100mg in 50ml water) solution of HgCl2 for some minutes until they turn gray and start to fizz. Take them out, wash with water, and you have a powerful reducer. E.g. it is fun to use it on nitromethane (quite exothermic!).

 

And while we're at it, condense some NM with benzaldehyde (5h reflux in toluene) and reduce the resulting nitrostyrene (in IPA with said amalgam of course), add conc NaOH and more toluene, separate the upper layer, dry with baked epsom salt and titrate with conc. H2SO4 in 99% IPA (1:5) until no more fine crystals form. Filter and dry.

Congrats, you just made the compound hyped for the feeling of being in love (i.e. some brain chemical) in the form of the sulphate. Using alcoholic HCl will give the hydrochloride. The bad news is there is no way to get it through the blood-brain barrier of some cheerleader to make her fall in love with you (or it would not be legal to make).

 

You better be DAMNED sure not to substitute precursors if you like your freedom. Above compound is phenyl-ethyl-amine (PEA), or shorter phenetylamine, or even shorter phentamine.

E.g. an extra CH3 could result in highly illegal Alpha methyl phetamine, beware! (And yes I know the guy who named it had the carbon numbers wrong).

Edited October 30, 2008 by Boomer

[winnipegchemist]

ok... recently i was at my grampas house where he has a box of old chemicals from the 30's and 40's and 50's, essentially when saftey wasnt an issue and as i opened this box for the first time(he just told me) i saw something that literally made my heart stop...It is an ampuole of a goldish metal which melts when i hold the ampuole in my hands, he says he got it from a lab that was closing, but has completley forgotten what it is... it weighs 72 grams...Could it be???