TiO2 + C + Cl2 = TiCl4 + CO2 + CO

 

I Got 2,3,4,2,1,2 as the coefficients and it works, but then i tried another way and it worked, so can there be multiple ways?

So you got

[ce]2TiO2 + 3C + 4Cl2 -> 2TiCl4 + CO2 + 2CO[/ce],

correct?

 

That sounds right to me. I can't think of any other way of doing it. How'd you do it the second time?

Yeh the equation is rightly balanced. Even if you have tried any other way, as long as it balances each individual elements from both sides its ok.

So you got

[ce]2TiO2 + 3C + 4Cl2 -> 2TiCl4 + CO2 + 2CO[/ce],

correct?

 

That sounds right to me. I can't think of any other way of doing it. How'd you do it the second time?

 

I'd imagine you could change the CO2 to CO ratio of the equation by adjusting the quantity of carbon. Or are there rules for the CO2 to CO ratio?

Good point, hot CO2 will oxidise C to CO.

you could have another carbon in there and only produce CO with no CO2 at all and it would be valid. i would imagine that in the real world reaction of that then this reaction would also occur as the carbon would likely be in excess.

 

alternatively you could have one less carbon and produce 2 moles of CO2 which would probably also occur but the question does not ask about this.

 

but the point is, tweaking the amount of carbon can tweak the CO2:CO ratio produced.

Just to make things worse, CO reacts with Cl2 to give phosgene COCl2

yeah, that'll be a really bad side reaction.

Just to make things worse, CO reacts with Cl2 to give phosgene COCl2

 

Just out of curiosity, how nasty is COCl2?

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/cis/products/icsc/dtasht/_icsc00/icsc0007.htm

There are lots of ways of doing it. In fact:

 

[ce] a TiO2 + (a+b) C + 2a Cl2 -> a TiCl4 + (a-b) CO2 + 2b CO[/ce],

 

will work for any a and b. Though a>b to prevent zero or negative CO2

"Just out of curiosity, how nasty is COCl2?"

Well, it makes the equation diffcult to balance and it was used as a war gas. That's 2 sorts of nasty.

Actually, titanic chloride is pretty unpleasant too (and I didn't make up the name). I'd guess it is comparable with COCl2. Since the whole point would be to capture the TiCl4 to process into titanium they would probabaly keep the COCl2 under control too.

If it were my plant I'd probably try to keep the excess of carbon small so as not to waste it (though C is cheap) and to avioid dealing with CO which is not just toxic, but flammable too.

Thanks YT2095 and John Cuthber. I see why you'd want to avoid making that stuff.

Just for the record I looked up how they make the stuff. They use an excess of carbon and generate CO as the by product. I don't know why they do it that way but I guess C is cheap and they want to convert all the titania to titanic chloride.

john, basic equilibrium chemistry, increase on of the reactants to excess and you will force the equilibrium to favour the products. can't for the life of me remember the name it is given. i keep thinking hess's law but thats for reaction pathways.

I think it's Le Chatelier's principle and I'm familliar enough with it.

However, while an excess of one reactant will drive a reaction to completion there is still the question of which one you use in excess. They could chose more C or more TiO2

well i think the reactions effectiveness will be measured in terms of how much TiCl4 is created out of an amount of TiO2 so either carbon or chlorine would be in excess. C is both cheaper and less dangerous than the Cl so it would make sense to bump up the amount of C. an excess of Cl2 might also result in unwanted side reactions as it is so reactive as well.