NurdRage - 2009-06-29
We make concentrated sulfuric acid from sodium metabisulfite, hydrochloric acid and an oxidant such as hydrogen peroxide or nitric acid. Warning: The procedures in this video produce large quantities of toxic gases and deal with highly corrosive acids. All work must be performed in a fume hood with proper safety equipment. And all apparatus must be glass to withstand the acids. Sodium metabisulfite upon reaction with acid will generate sulfur dioxide. This provides a convenient source of sulfur dioxide that is easier to handle than burning sulfur, but it is acceptable if you want to go that route. You'll just need to build a sophisticated gas capture and scrubbing system so the sulfur vapors and soot don't clog your tubes, poison your air and possibly burn down your workspace. Sulfur dioxide is converted into sulfuric acid by reacting it with an oxidizer in water. In this case either hydrogen peroxide or nitric acid. Industrially, sulfur dioxide is reacted with oxygen over a catalyst to make sulfur trioxide. This is cheaper but extremely difficult to do safely for the home chemist so the metabisulfite/oxidizer method is used instead. You may use potassium metabisulfite instead of sodium metabisulfite. Both are used by home brewers to sterilize winemaking and beermaking mixtures. It's also used for homemade dyeing processes. Therefore it is very easy to obtain the metabisulfites without the need for expensive shipping fees or licenses. The oxidizers must be present for this reaction to work. You cannot simply use water or you'll just make sulfurous acid which decomposes on heating and is useless for the reactions that sulfuric acid is intended for. In future videos, we may show other methods of sulfuric acid production including sulfur trioxide based methods so please subscribe! -EDIT- You CANNOT use a sulfate in place of a sulfite, they are chemically different and cannot be substituted.
The video is about doing interesting chemistry. I make no claims that this is better/easier/cheaper than buying it. Also it is difficult in some regions to procure certain chemicals due to legislation. These videos are about learning and understanding new things. That is what separates scientists from mere consumers. Think about that before you decide to be condescending.
im in NZ, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get chemicals, and most items on the supermarket or hardwarestore shelves don't even list ingredients anymore.
This is awesome! Especially for those of us who are in situations where getting commercial H2SO4 is difficult. Thank you.
By the way, keep up all the good work; I love all of your videos!
Wow you could be a camera guy for some show, because your videos are so clean and high grade. Also I am learning so much and can't wait to tell my Chemistry teacher all I have learned from you! Keep them Coming! :D
if all you can get is a lower concentration then you can still do the reactions, you just need to readjust the proportions of water and acid accordingly, My HCl came from our lab chemical supplier.
Hey NurdRage, i had a few questions regarding this experiment, first of all, does a 3 neck round bottom flask absolutely HAVE to be used? or can we use a regular filtration flask? and do we HAVE to have a stir bar inside? or can we mix the first 2 components before we attach the rest of the apparatus containing the hydrochloric acid? great video, thank you very much for posting!
i love everything u guys do!! keep em coming..^_^
I remember messing with hydrochloric acid in science class... that was actually quite fun... we were learning about bases and acid's and how base ingredients will null out the effects of the acid. in other words we used sodium as the base and hydrochloric acid as the acid, creating sodium chloride. we then allowed crystals form, creating "salt"
I've actually heard of a similar procedure, which uses concentrated HCl and sodium sulfate or bisulfate. Apparently, sodium chloride is pretty insoluble in conc HCl, so dissolving sulfate or bisulfate in HCl precipitates sodium chloride and gives sulfuric acid. Boiling it should remove excess HCl and concentrate the sulfuric acid.
@NurdRage I tried to do that sulfuric acid on sugar part in the lab i was working in, but it didn't react as well as yours. I used 99.999% sulfuric acid from sigma, and added it to about the same amount of sugar as you did, in the same size bottle as yours (20mL), but the amount of carbon produced was really low. Can you tell me what I did wrong?
These videos are really cool and straight forward. But all of the chemicals required are expensive and difficult to find (in high enough concentrations)
i remember making copper sulfate using electrolysis... man i love this channel.
I'm no chemist, but I'd love to see some of the other methods! Must you be affiliated with a lab of some kind to acquire metabisulfite, or is is commercially available? ~ Jethro.
Have you considered demonstrating how to make acid by electrolysis? You can convert sulfates to sulfuric acid using a divided cell and an inert anode. A flower pot makes a good divider for this. The anolyte becomes sulfuric acid and the catholyte becomes basic (hydroxide of whatever the sulfate was combined with).
If this reaction works, my guess is it would need some serious heating to release the SO3. Anyway it's not the best way to produce SO3. Thermal decomposition of bisulfates or of persulfates is preferred (in lab conditions).
Essentially "It's illegal to be smart without a permit" (Face-Palm)
can you use potassium metabisulfite instead of sodium metabisalfite? from my understanding the chemistry is similar but I just want to make sure.
Could you use 28% HCl for this same method but instead using a larger volume. Also if you were using 35% H2O2 would it be a good idea to throw a piece of copper into the sulfuric acid at the end of it in order to decompose any remaining hydrogen peroxide (for safety reasons) before concentrating it by using boiling or distillation?
Hi nurdrage! First of all thank you for this video. I have a question: can i use sodium bisupfite instead of sodium metabisulfite? Thanks
I know this is an old video and forgive me if this has already been asked but would a mixture of say 90% hydrogen peroxide and 10% nitric acid work as it would still be cheap but would also have the colour indicating properties, or would the nitric acic react before all the hydrogen peroxide is consumed rendering it useless?
I enjoy and learn alot from your videos!
interesting, certainly worth checking out. Thanks for the input :)
nice one ;-) thx a lot ...any chance you can show a setup for making HCl from table salt and H2SO4??
Absolutely! Go for it! ^_^ Just remember to recalculate the molar mass of potassium metabisulfite
Can I use 32% hcl?
Hey, I was wondering if there was another way to make sulphuric acid. I was thinking about how people tear when they cut onions. I believe that when an onion is cut, sulphur dioxide is released into the air and reacts with the water in your eyes to produce sulphuric acid. Can you think of any way to replicate these results in an experiment? So that the wanted acid can be easily, and cheaply, obtained with just a few onions and some water.
@NurdRage I have a question... In many of your videos you are using conc. hydrochloric acid, which i do not have, I can obtain (very easily) 18% hydrochloric acid. I was wondering how to concentrate it, so... is there any way to concentrate hydrochloric acid.
Whenever we can. Making videos is a rather difficult process and some experiments take longer than others or need to be re-filmed. The high cost of chemicals also means that redoing something really cuts into our budget. Also, some videos we make turn out to be crap, so we never show them.
All the reagents are very easily obtained and very common. And i've already covered the nitric acid synthesis in another video. Burning sulfur is harder to work with since you have to build a gas capture apparatus. And you still need peroxide or nitric acid. Its actually easier to do it the way described in the video using a metabisulfite. If you're honestly expecting something even easier then i honestly can't give it to you.
Nurdrage, how should I dispose of the acid if needed? (P.S. your vids are awesome)
But how do I know it has above 300C° without having an appropriate thermometer? Does the liquid boil differently or is there any other indication to know if the concentration is 95+%?
I suppose you could lead the NO2 through a cold condenser and recover some of the nitric acid too.
as mentioned in the video, acidification of metabisulfites. you could also try combustion of hydrogen sulfide (not very pleasant). burning of metal sulfides would also yield sulfur dioxide. High temperature pyrolysis of some sulfates would do it. But this the least convenient of the methods. all told, acidification of metabisulfite is safest and most convenient way of producing sulfur dioxide in a clean controlled manner.
Hey NurdRage, I have a question on concentrating the H2SO4. If it starts fuming it has about 70%, did I get this right? So how do I notice the acid reached about 95-98%? I don't have any thermometer which is able to idicate such high temperatures. So is there any indication by the acid when it's concentrated as much as possible? Thanks!
A much easier way would be to thermally decompose MgSO4 which would create SO3 and MgO and then the SO3 would decompose into SO2 and O2 and then bubble the SO2 through a oxidizer like H2O2 or HNO3
The reason why I am suggesting this is cause Epsom salt is way easier to get than sodium metabisulphite.
Post a video of your process and i'll take a look!
And yet another great video ^^ Wow what an effect :) Your very smart , good work!
i got a question are there any other toxic gases produced when you make sulfuric acid or nitric than the dioxides
(Update: "Most Sulfur Products have a warning about using Sulfur products with oil")
If you mix sulfur with bleach or hydrogen peroxide or warm water or Neem Oil, can that create any toxic reactions or is it only a risk from the effects after you ignite sulfur? I've heard you can use Sulfur for a fungicide for gardening and I need to know if what i listed or anything else may be listed, would be dangerous for houseplants. Also, would sulfur in the water you water the soil or would mixing a bit of sulfur in the potting soil, be perfectly safe and help fight mold growth?
Could you use water in place of the H2O2?
where do you get your supplies (specifically the gas adapter)?
Question: If I use HNO3 as the oxidizer, it need to be pure, or which concentration is recommended?
What volume of HNO3 in the test tube?
Can I bubble NO2 produced to an NaOH solution to wash it?
Regards.
Actually, if you use magnesium sulfate as your electrolyte, the magnesium hydroxide will precipitate as it is formed. While this is pretty messy and your cathode requires constant cleaning to remove the buildup, you know it's complete when the magnesium hydroxide stops forming.
The nitric acid method. much resembles the lead-chamber process. A lot more expensive than purchasing sulfuric acid at your local DIY store, but a fun experiment to do thought. Hydrogen peroxide is not easy to purchase in large concentrations in most countries. since (sadly) organic peroxides can be made with it.
Dear sir, I have seen a chemical equation from a book: 2CuCl2+Na2SO3->2CuCl+2NaCl+SO3 So can i buuble sulfur trioxide into water to get sulfuric acid, or does this equation occur?
Can you distil the hydrochloric acid to make a higher concentration? Since its boiling point is lower than that of the water.
Radu Adrian Probably but it would be easier to obtain a higher concentration from the start and then distill it to the desired concentration. I'm not familiar with raising the concentration but it looks to be an arduous process compared to the relatively simple distillation process.
I found another very simple way to make H2SO4 from CuSO4: Make concentrated solutions of CuSO4 and oxalic acid (excess) and combine them. This gives unsoluble copper oxalate (it's unsoluble even at low pH) and dilute sulfuric acid: CuSO4(aq) + H2C2O4(aq) → CuC2O4 ↓ + H2SO4 (aq) Unfortunately the copper oxalate is very fine and goes through every filter, so I let it settle for a day and poured of the remaining clear solution (indicates that there's no more Cu2+).
Can you make concentrated acids from dilute ones?
Hey Nurdrage, great video. I checked out Alfa Aesar, but I found that you need a corporate credit card to buy reagents. Does this mean that a personal credit card won't work? Thanks.
I would like to see LSD synthesis in a step by step video format. I dont want to try and make it or anything but have always seen this as the mother of all chemical compounds. even if you took it to the last step and then destroyed it for legal reasons it would be a video that would get millions of hits (no pun intended) the material I have read makes this synthesis seem incredible and complex and bloated with wonderful science! I would really like to understand that chemical more.
would this work with calcium sulfate(aka gypsum) or would you need to use another method?
Israel - 2014-01-25
valeu ! ! ! ! muito bom seus vídeos , bem explicado , parabéns e continue assim compartilhando conhecimento para a evolução de todos ! ! !