So, I worked with chlorine yesterday...

Posted 4 years ago2020-08-30 13:37:51 UTC
Yesterday, I decided to make some chlorine and try and ignite some iron. So I got my bleach and my hydrochloric acid and filled 100ml of chlorine bleach into a beaker. Then I dropped some hydrochloric acid into the bleach. It exothermically reacted to evolve chlorine gas.
NaClO + 2 HCl → NaCl + H₂O + Cl₂

Then I took a piece of iron wire in tongs and heated it with a handheld burner until it glowed bright white. Then I held it into the beaker. Red smoke started coming off of the iron.
2 Fe + 3 Cl₂ → 2 FeCl₃
The red smoke was subliming (turning to gas without melting first) iron(III) chloride.

By the way, chlorine smells like salad at lower concentrations. At higher ones, it smells like someone shoving a plate of salad into your face. It also looks like salad gas. The salad element. Also I have a fume hood so I took no damage except that it wasn't strong enough so the house smelled like chlorine, but it was still a safe concentration. The odor threshold of chlorine is 0.002 parts per million, and immediately dangerous dose is 10 parts per million.

4 Comments

Commented 4 years ago2020-08-31 06:05:42 UTC Comment #102883
Are you trying to do an etching solution?
Commented 4 years ago2020-08-31 13:58:13 UTC Comment #102885
Are you trying to do an etching solution?
Nope, just trying to do some random stuff that sounds fun. There, I was trying to ignite iron.
Commented 4 years ago2020-08-31 19:01:49 UTC Comment #102886
Just dont grow your own crystals.
Commented 4 years ago2020-08-31 19:12:33 UTC Comment #102887
Cool.

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