I've been scouring the web for some hours, looking for the temperature at which potassium carbonate decomposes into potassium oxide, but have had no luck (e.g. wikipedia only tells you that it will decompose before boiling, but not at which temperature this happens... argh).

This is the best I've found: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040603198002895

Does anyone know something about the matter?

Edited November 21, 20205 yr by gatewood

17 hours ago, gatewood said:

I've been scouring the web for some hours, looking for the temperature at which potassium carbonate decomposes into potassium oxide, but have had no luck (e.g. wikipedia only tells you that it will decompose before boiling, but not at which temperature this happens... argh).

This is the best I've found: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040603198002895

Does anyone know something about the matter?

Have a read of this Researchgate discussion: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Thermal_decomposition_of_Sodium_Carbonate

Decomposition temperature seems to not be well-defined, due to it being a gradual process over a wide range of temperatures. A figure of 2300K-2400K is mentioned for it's complete decomposition... but note it doesn't actually start there.

Edited November 21, 20205 yr by StringJunky

There won't be "a decomposition temperature".

If you are lucky, you would find a graph of partial pressure of CO2 vs temperature and, I guess you could say that when that pressure exceeds about 400 millionths of an atmosphere  the stuff will decompose.

When the pressure of CO2 exceeds 1 atmosphere it will decompose rapidly.
 

Whether either of those temperatures is above the melting or boiling points, I don't know.
 

Hmmm... I see, thanks for the input.