Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: NickNick on February 09, 2008, 10:44:56 AM
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I'm doing an process that involves stibnite. Potassium nitrate is mixed with potassium carbonate in water. This I assume will convert the potassium nitrate to potassium hydroxide because of the pH of the potassium carbonate being 11. The water is added to a flask with ground stibnite and allowed to sit until an extraction occurs. Then the water is distilled out. Distillations are repeated until a blood red oil comes over.
Now my question is, how dangerous is this and what type of distillation set up should I have? Won't antimony ions be comming over with the water (hence the red color) and possibly into the air?
The distillation set up I have is a 2 liter flask in a heating mantle designed for that size, then an arm going to a graham condenser (the type with the coil being for the cold water) and then to another graham condenser (the other type with the coil being cooled by the water).
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Potassium nitrate is mixed with potassium carbonate in water. This I assume will convert the potassium nitrate to potassium hydroxide because of the pH of the potassium carbonate being 11.
No KOH here, just hydrolized carbonate.
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Thanks for responding. Can you explain a little more. What happpens to the potassium nitrate? It becomes a hydrolized carbonate? Or the the potassium carbonate does? What happens to the nitrogen?