Patreon Preview - Lab Notes - Making Oleum (part 2)
Added 2024-05-01 04:47:42 +0000 UTCAnother patreon preview for your consideration. As usual, i'm using the synthetic voice to get the timings right before i put in my own.
So this is more research on making oleum. Getting a little further along. Let me know if you have any questions, insights, or suggestions.
Comments
As long as i can beat 30% i think that would be "good enough" for this method. It's catalytic, so even modest yield can simply be repeated to get more. And it uses modest temperatures with existing borosilicate glassware, that's a big plus for amateur chemistry. I do acknowledge full pyrolysis with higher temperatures gives higher yields. But i wanted to see if i could do it with just a ceramic hotplate.
NurdRage
2024-05-01 22:48:36 +0000 UTCI’m sorry about your hot plate. Collateral victim :( I bought one ceramic stirring hotplate one year ago pouncing on a sale (it’s an OHAUS product, it was like >€ 600 price point). I value like the apple of my eye. I can feel your loss. I don’t have much to add w/r to what I said before. I think you won’t really succeed in obtaining good yield with this method. The only way that sounds practical to me is what I did, i.e. pyrolysis of sodium bisulphate in a quartz RBF. First, you put the flask in a heating mantle at 400 °C (why didn't you use a heating mantle btw, instead of a hot plate?) and let the bisulphate dehydrate into pyrosulphate until no more steam comes out of the neck. Then you switch to a full distillation apparatus (I used an air cooled long condenser to avoid clogging) and you crank up the heat using blowtorches. Unfortunately I had no time to fully carry out my test, but I collected 25 g of sodium trioxide, and there were many more left to go. The end of the reaction is clear, because sodium sulphate is solid at 800 °C, so the contents of the RBF solidifies as the sulphur trioxide is pushed out.
Mono Keras
2024-05-01 14:08:02 +0000 UTCI'm guessing it's too much insulation cooking the electronics, hopefully wires melting together but otherwise it might need new boards. The element is probably fine though, and those are very nice elements so it would be worth rebuilding with a PID controller.
Twizzy
2024-05-01 13:08:40 +0000 UTCThis is an experiment that I will not be doing. :) But it's still very fun to watch, thank you for your work. The hot plate, probably a loose connection; if it's that should be easy to fix.
Silviu T
2024-05-01 11:48:32 +0000 UTC
