10 replies to this topic

[bmiller14]

A few days ago I was playing with a 9 volt batterie and some wire and electrolisising (sorry about spelling) a few house hold chems and when i did salt i got a coating on the wire for some reason I put it in the flame of my butane lighter and i got a very nice green flame the only thing i could think of that it could be is cupric chloride. But if that is so where is the sodium going could some one please help. Any way weather any one can help or not I think if you had some copper powder and you did this you could have a very good green coloring.

[bobconan]

I ran electrolysis through ammonia with copper wire and ended up with blue liquid

[Stuart]

The Sodium will go to form Sodium Hydroxide. The blue liquid you got was probably Copper Hydroxide in the water.

[Phoenix]

There is a section of Tom Perigrin's website here which discusses copper in a lot of detail. (This page seems to be just about all that's left of his original firework site.)

[adamw]

you could have a very good green coloring

Yes the resulting powder would be green but this is not the colour of the effect produced with it. Copper compounds give a blue colour.

[bmiller14]

No I ment the flame was colored green when I get a web site I will post a short video.

[chim-chim]

No I ment the flame was colored green when I get a web site I will post a short video.

You likely got a 'green' color because of 'where is the sodium going?'.
The copper compound produces blue, the little bit of Sodium Hydroxide from the solution adds yellow and.....


I haven't done any electrolysis since lab in high school. I think I'll freshen up with some reading and give it a go.

Thanks everyone, this forum is always an inspiration.

[Phoenix]

I re-read through that page last night after I posted the link. There are several methods of manufacturing copper oxychloride that look quite promising, but the simplest seems to be "Treating a mixture of CuCl and CuCl2 in water with air," since both chlorides can be used (and I'd probably get a mixture from dissolving CuO in HCl), and no other chemicals need be found or made.

I guess the "boiling CuCl2 with sodium or potassium acetate solution" could work too (sodium acetate is sodium carbonate (washing soda) plus acetic acid (vinegar), right?) but that would mean introducing extra impurities into the solution.

My concern is that the presence of soluable copper compounds would be bad with chlorates. However, if they are soluable, then they should be easy to remove by washing, as copper oxychloride is insoluable. I will do some extra reading on this before I try to make any, but copper oxychloride would be pretty nice as it's got its own chlorine, and (if pure) is safe with potassium chlorate (according to Bill Ofca).

[Stuart]

Acetic Acid and Sodium Carbonate will be a neutralisation reaction so you will only get Sodium Acetate, Water and Carbon Dioxide, no impurities.

Stuart

[Phoenix]

I was referring to whatever sodium compound ended up mixed with the copper oxychloride after the copper chloride and sodium acetate had reacted. It shouldn't really be hard to remove, but if the air method works, I'd rather use that.

[EDIT] Spelling and Grammar

Edited by Phoenix, 23 May 2004 - 09:50 AM.

[Stuart]

Sodium Compounds tend to be soluble however Copper Oxychloride is not. This is how you could get a pure substance.