March 28, 2024, 07:10:02 PM
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Topic: Help identifying a substance...Iron Acetate (III) crystals???  (Read 911 times)

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Offline letmepicyou

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Hey guys, first time posting newbie here. 

Bit of quick background.  I work a lot with metal (and other related hobbies), and often have rusty metal to clean up.  As anyone here I'm sure knows, many acids (such as citric, acetic, hydrochloric, ect) will dissolve rust from iron and steel.  I like to use acetic acid (vinegar) because I get, as a result, another useful substance, Iron (III) Acetate (and some Iron (II) Acetate as well), which is useful for creating my own woodworking stains, pigments, and dyes. 

The photo of the shot glass is the resulting nearly pure Iron (III) Acetate after it has been pulverized, combined with hydrogen peroxide to eliminate any remaining Iron (II) Acetate, and left a few days to react and evaporate.  When all the bubbling is done and all of the (II) is turned to (III), I gently heat it in a double boiler to fully evap the remaining H2O2 and gently break it up to the form you see here just before it's completely dry.  I then pulverize it in a mortar and pestle to make the most wonderful reddish brown pigment that can be used in just about anything, and is totally safe to work with. 

The second image is what I have a question about.  The second image from a small bowl that I extract the "rust slurry" from my acid bath, wherein I use small neodymium magnets to extract the iron (I just leave them stuck to the side of the container to dry) from the liquid.  But in all this, I've somehow created these...crystals.  At least they look like crystals.  The problem is, when searching the web for "Iron (III) acetate crystals", I can't find ANYTHING that looks like my photo.  Not even close.  So could one of you far more experienced folk than I, please verify that the substance I'm looking at here is, indeed, Iron (III) acetate crystals, and not some other chemical substance that I have inadvertently created?


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