Jenny Lewis on tue 31 jul 12
Greetings all
I was musing upon this and that, and found myself thinking about
oxides, the stuff we get in powdery form.
What I don't understand is - how do they get like that? There's a
chunk of rock in the ground and then....... well, that's as far as I
get! How is oxygen added? How does it became fine powder which we
can then chuck into buckets of stuff?
I haven't got as far as musing upon carbonates yet, but no doubt I
should be wondering about that as well.
We never were taught proper chemistry or physics or geology or
anything useful and interesting at the school I went to!
Thank you anyone who can enlighten me.
Jenny Lewis
with a brain-ache
Earl Krueger on tue 31 jul 12
Good question Jenny.
I have made my own copper carbonate by covering copper wire with
hydrochloric acid and bubbling air through it. Then I added washing soda,
sodium carbonate, which caused copper carbonate to precipitate out as a
fine powder. After several washings of this powder to remove sodium
chloride and then drying I obtained a powder indistinguishable from
purchased copper carbonate.
If I were to heat this powder to a red heat it would decompose to copper
oxide and carbon dioxide.
Similar processes can be used for other metals using ground up rocks (ore).
Sometimes just heating ore will cause it to turn into the oxide but may
contain a lot of impurities.
There are many other ways oxides can be created but variations on the above
methods are quite common.
Earl in Oregon
Who is no longer allowed by the govt
to buy the chemicals I used to buy when
I was 10 years old. How will kids learn?
Jenny Lewis on wed 1 aug 12
Hi Earl
Thank you so much for your explanation. It's lovely learning stuff
that really isn't in the encyclopedia or online - I have been looking
through the books and the usual resources!
I am impressed that anyone tries to do this kind of stuff himself!
However, I'm not planning to do so myself. My own talent lies in
letting the experts do what they do best!
Thanks again,
Jenny Lewis
brain not so achey today
Taylor Hendrix on wed 1 aug 12
I'm sure the making of many of the potter's oxides, carbonates, etc. would
be found in any good inorganic chemistry textbook or lab book. Resale
bookshops should have used copies.
Taylor, in Rockport TX
wirerabbit1 on Skype (-0600 UTC)
http://wirerabbit.blogspot.com
http://wirerabbitpots.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirerabbit/
https://youtube.com/thewirerabbit
On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 6:37 AM, Jenny Lewis
wrote:
> Hi Earl
>
> Thank you so much for your explanation. It's lovely learning stuff
> that really isn't in the encyclopedia or online - I have been looking
> through the books and the usual resources!
>
>
Jenny Lewis on thu 2 aug 12
Hi Taylor
Thank you for the suggestion. Must confess I didn't think of looking
in chemistry books, duh to me. I went through all the pottery books I
have, which is quite a few nowadays, and Encyclopedia Brittanica, and
Google. You know, the usual suspects. But I like your idea very
much.
Yippee, another thing to learn about. It's a pity school was never
this interesting!
Ciao,
Jenny
| |
|
