Cesium

Sorry woelen, that quote is all the chem book says. It was under an extremely short section describing the properties of NaHSO4. The word "alcohol" refers to ethanol. In other passages, it will decipher between "absolute alcohol" and "alcohol", the latter probably refering to 95% ethanol.

I was flipping through a very old (published in 1879) and found something relevant to this thread. In regards to NaHSO4 or as the book calls it "Hydrogen Sodium Sulphate", "like the corresponding potassium salt, it is decomposed by alcohol at once into sulphuric acid and the normal salt".

It has been stated several times in this thread that the decomposition of sodium pyrosulfate (Na2S2O7) at high temperatures yields sulfur trioxide. This information was seemingly gained from the sciencemadness board. However, the members there concluded that is not what happens. Sulfuric acid is needed to drive the reaction forward. Hence one cannot attain sulfuric acid from sodium pyrosulfate because sulfuric acid is needed itself. At http://www.sciencemadness.org/member_publications/SO3_and_oleum.pdf, the equation Na2S2O7 --> H2SO4 --> Na2SO4 + SO3 is given. "The sulfuric acid plays the role of a catalyst, it does not take part in the overall reaction, but without its presence no SO3 is formed." I also found this from an encylopedia at the library: "NaHSO4, has been employed in the manufacture of sulphur trioxide. When heated it loses water to form sodium pyrosulphate, Na2S2O7, which on treatment with sulphuric acid yields normal sodium sulphate and sulphur trioxide" Just wanted to set that straight. You cannot make sulfuric acid from sodium bisulfate even when all safety precautions are taken and with proper equipment.

Theory: Extract benzoyl peroxide from the acne cream with acetone. Soak in water so that benzoyl peroxide (slowly?) undergoes hydrolysis to form benzoic acid. Strongly heat benzoic acid to perform decarboxylation and distill benzene. What I Did: I took a gram of the acne cream and used acetone to extract the 10% benzoyl peroxide from it. I boiled the acetone using a WATER BATH and as soon as I saw the BP start to precipitate, I added water. Benzoyl peroxide is not soluble in water and I didn't want to have dry crystals because it can explode when dry. After the acetone boiled off, a white solid floated to the top of the water. I thought this would be some benzoic acid-benzoyl peroxide mix? Apparently it wasn't though because both compounds have a density of about 1.3 g/cm^3 which means that they should sink in water. Anyways, I heated the white solid under a flame and a slightly yellowish liquid formed that quickly boiled. The vapors smelled and gave me a bit of a headache. I have never worked with benzene. I just wish I knew what it smelled like so I could identify it. My understanding of the mechanisms of organic chemistry is very limited. Is it possible that I made benzene? Thanks in advance.

I'm interested in extracting Benzoyl Peroxide from some acne cream and then converting this to benzoic acid. Active Ingredient: Benzoyl Peroxide (10%) Inactive Ingredients: Aluminum hydroxide gel, bentontite, carbomer-940, dimethicone, glycerly sterate SE, isopropyl myristate, methylparaben, PEG-12, potassium hydroxide, propylene glycol, propylparaben, and purified water Would acetone be an appropiate solvent? (AP!?) Assuming I can extract some relativity pure benzoyl peroxide, how can I convert this to benzoic acid? I've read that hydrolysis of benzoyl peroxide will slowly yield benzoic acid. So if I let some BP sit in water for a long enough period of time, this would work? I've also read that benzoyl peroxide can be destroyed with an alkali iodide and HCl. What do you suggest?

OK I tried this and I got about 0.5 g of silvery iodine crystals, so it worked. I realized that there was way excess chlorine gas, and now I wonder why didn't the I2 form ICl? (heh i'm not complaining though)

Hmmmm about the chlorine method...would this create iodine gas or crystals? And what type of temperatures would I need to be working at? Would the electrolysis of brine be an adequate means of producing chlorine for this setup or would the oxygen produced at the anode get in the way?

I know this is not directly related to this page on the thread, but I know you guys were talking about making iodine crystals somewhere ! I read somewhere that you can make iodine by mixing tincture of iodine with 30% hydrogen peroxide. Anybody heard of this or tried it before?

I made myself some cupric sulfate today using copper wires, Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), a milk carton, 9 volt battery, and a cotton membrane. After about an hour the solution had a definite blue tint. I believe CuO is forming at the anode, and an gelly insoluble product presumably Mg(OH)2 is forming at the cathode. I plan to leave the cell on overnight, but I have run into one problem. How can I extract the CuSO4 from the excess MgSO4?