Hope someone can help me on this one.

I have an unknown substance, but i'm quite sure that its Fe(3+), and it is treated to 1.0cc of dilute hydrochloric acid and then 0.6cc of aqueous chlorine. When i carried out this in the lab, nothing happened, the colour of the solution remained the same.

 

What is this testing for?

 

 

..any help appreciated.

I imagine it's testing for the substitution of the H2O ligands by Cl. Have you done anything on the spectrochemical series?

That sounds plausible, however i also know that Cl- ions are already present in the solution because the same solution was tested with dilute nitric acid and then silver nitrate. The result was that a white precipitate formed. This would indicate that Cl- ions were present in the solution. This would suggest that the Fe3+ has Cl-ligands right? BUT...i also know that the Fe3+ complex undergoes deprotonation. So...would [Fe(H20)3(Cl-)3](3-) seem to be the unknown solution(assuming an octahderal complex exists)?