What, and where are some good sources of magnesium metal.

Any source will do, as long as I can easily extract them metal, somehow. Is there a way to get the magnesium, without having the metal??

Can the metal be extracted from MgSO4, Magnesium Sulphate???WOuld I do this by electrolysis?? And is there a way I could do this electrolysis without the magnesium metal (which i dont have:))???

no, not without some serious lab kit and temperatures that just wouldn`t be safe for the home experimenteer without this kit.

having said that, have you ever seen the metal pencil sharpeners?

they hardly weigh anything and look very much like Aluminium, well... the ones made up until the early 90`s were almost pure Magnessium, see if you can get your hands on a few of those

oh, and one more thing, is magnesium a grey in color??

What is its appearence, s I know what it should look like.

Thanks fo that info through, it was VERY useful.

Oh ya, and I know that if you leave some zinc in CuSO4, for like a week or so, copper will settle on the zinc. I do have Magnesium Sulphate, could I do something similar???

no way, sorry and all that, but MG is far too reactive to settle as the metalic deposit in a wet reaction, you`ll get the oxide and some will dissolve to become the hydroxide. sad but true

you`de need to super heat the MgSO4 crystals to melting point with all water of crystalisation gone and THEN use electrolysis, as I said, that takes some pretty heavy duty kit!

as for its apearance, it`s alot like Aluminium but weighs a little less, ignore the look of Mg ribbon, half the time it`s oxidised to hell!, but if you DO get some ribbon, scrape along it to the bare metal and have a look, it`s quite unimpresive and strongly resembles Alu

hmm... pretty long procedure i should say !

What do you want it for?

up to about the early 80`s some motor cases were cast in magnesium too, as well as certain parts in very old hard drives, now it`s mostly an alloy with Aluminium (Magnalium). if you can get hold of some of this older stuff though, you`ll have your Mg in quantity, although you`ll be quite disapointed as it`s not that easy to burn when it`s in a large chunk (I`ve tried), if you get a box knife and carefully cut a little turning off it it will burn though

Is that because it needs a higher activation energy?

I don`t understand your question?

Why doesn't a larger chunk of magnesium burn that easily? Is it because it needs a higher amount of activation energy?

it`s a surface area thing really, Mg ribon has a greater surface are per gram that a cube of it, making it harder for oxygen to do its work.

you`ll actualy find that very thin and pure Alu will exhibit similar properties and be extremely bright when it burns too!

if you carefully dismantle an old electrolytic capacitor and unravel it`s coil, there will be 2 thin metal sheets, one of them is pure Alu foil (not the stuff you use in the oven to wrap backed potatoes in ).

hold this foil over a bunsen burner, but try not to look directly at it, as it`s really quite bright!

oh yeah! I was told that aluminium powder burns very easily, inlike the foil. Is this relevant?

yea , it burns real good

i've gotta try it once

if it`s powder it has to be 150 mesh or less, dark flake, pyro grade is the best. more surface area than sphereoids

a suitable oxidiser is needed too (potassiun chlorate is recomended).

or you could just get some on a spatula and sprinkle it over a bunsen burner flame, goggles and heat proof gloves are recomended here!

ok. thanx YT!

aww, i think you proved my hypothesis to be wrong.

 

i was thinking (for the better good of science) of adding an acid to CuSO4 and creating H2SO4. It kinda makes sense to me since the activity of H2>Cu

 

does that make sense?

you`de just end up with a mix of copper sulphate and your acid, the bond between them is strong, at best you could displace the copper with another more reactive metal, but you`de have a hard time getting H2SO4 back from it.

and even if you did, it would just re-react with the copper again

on reflection, it MAYBE possible using a platinum electrode (anode I think it would be), and a porus pot with some pretty quick work on your part!

you`de need to electrolyse the CuSO4 soln in seperate cells seperated by a fine porus pot, and wipe off at regular intervals any copper deposits that form, since I know of no such salt called Platinum Sulphate, you MAY just get away with it before making too much Copper Persulphate, but it`s really not worth the effort when H2SO4 is dirt cheap to just go out and buy.

just thought it would be nice if you DID know a way rather than me just saying "NO", however impractical the method was

If you don't have your heart set on obtaining it in the lab and just want it to play with, I suggest the Collectibles > Science, Medical > Other Science Collectibles section of ebay. You can get many different kinds of chemicals here.

yeah, i'd rather not spend so much money on platinum:\

sadly, i have no idea where to get chemicals. well, there's my chem teacher but the department is kinda on to me after i asked for some KNO3 for Odyssey of the Mind. i ended up mixing it with some glucose and ignited it, creating quite a sizable smoke cloud. it also boiled an aluminum can i "contained" it in (i had no intentions to actually contain it but i was curious how hot the reaction would get).

 

oh well...

 

also, come to think of it, can't i just get some KNO3 or NaNO3 at Home Depot or a gardening store? if so, how could one produce HNO3 using a nitrate salt and conducting an acid-base reverse reaction?

When you say you want HNO3 -- why do you want it?

If you want a strong acid, then you have to find a source of hydrogen ions. The nitrate is inconsequential in an acid solution (unless reacting with Cu which will reduce the NO3- to form a NOX gas)

Consider the following reaction:

HNO3 + NaOH -> H20 + NaNO3

That nitrate salt won't help you much in getting back to H+ from H20.

sodium nitrate is easily available at a garden store, under the name of "nitrate of soda".

you`ll then need to add sulphuric acid to this and distil it to make your HNO3, all aparatus must be glass as nitric acid will attack any organics (cork, rubber etc...)

it`s also rather dangerous in the way of fumes, they will rip your lungs apart, and though you may not suffer now, give it 10 years!!! it`s a killer!

 

why do you want Nitric acid anyway? if your trying to make nitrate salts there are easier ways

it`s also rather dangerous in the way of fumes, they will rip your lungs apart, and though you may not suffer now, give it 10 years!!! it`s a killer!

 

That's very encouraging!