[herla]

I'm not a chemist, but I find the subject interesting and read a lot about it. I was reading an old chemistry book, inherited form my great aunt (a school teacher). In this you use ammonia (aq) and NaOH to get gaseous ammonia. At the bottom of the page there's a red warning box saying the ammonia gas must be washed (not sure if I'm translating "washed" correctly) using a gas washing flask (again, forgive my poor translation). However it doesn't say what the gas washing bottle should contain, nor does it say what is being washed away.

I would be very grateful if someone explained what is removed and what the gas washing flask should be filled with!

Sincerely yours.

Edit:
Thank you adnmin for bumping me to the correct subforum!

[Borek]

Can you elaborate on the experiment and the setup proposed?

If the solution is there to absorb ammonia so that it doesn't leave the experiment, any acid or even just water will suffice.

[Arkcon]

"Washing" is a common bit of jargon you'll encounter in laboratory work, and you can try and find a reference that can help you, we have several laboratory guides listed in the sticky topics at the top of many of our sub-forumns.

Like Borek: said, with more context, we may be able to talk you through what might be meant, depending on the context.  Let's try:  we usually wash something when its dirty, so what is the ammonia gas "dirty" with and what will take it away.  Warning: for laboratory work, we don't have to "wash" with water, sometimes we wash with something else, like we wash a greasy flask with a solvent.  Try to think along those lines.