I am looking to prepare finely powdered aluminium through precipitation. I have an idea that I will probably try soon but I would like the forum's input. The procedure I have in mind is the reduction of aluminium chloride with ferric chloride to precipitate aluminium powder and evolve ferrous chloride in solution.
AlCl3 +3FeCl2 -> Al + 3FeCl3
The goal is to make the particles as fine as possible. So for sake of discussion, I ask how would you go about precipitating aluminium? Do you have a better solution or do you think the above procedure will even work? I am going to try the above method for sure and I would like to try anyone else's method as well for comparison. Also, if you have fun experiment ideas for what to do with precipitated aluminum, go ahead and post them here as well.