I have an assigment question that I need help with.
The Q states that sodium hydroxide absorbs water from the atmosphere. Then the saturated NaOH absorbs carbon dioxide from the air to form a thin coating of sodium carbonate.
A piece of sodium hydroxide has been left on a watch glass. It is then dried, dissolved in water and excess barium nitrate solution is added. Is the precipitate that forms barium carbonate?
yes, barium carbonate is insoluble.
Yes I know that barium carbonate is soluble. What I wanted to know is: is barium carbonate the likely precipitate in this equation.
The solubilities are quite different.
BaCO3 0.002 g per 100 ml
Ba(OH)2 5.6 g per 100 ml
(both in cold water)
so yes, barium carbonate is the most likely ppt.
To determine whether barium carbonate is the likely precipitate in the given equation, we can consider the solubilities of barium carbonate (BaCO3) and barium hydroxide (Ba(OH)2).
According to the given solubility values:
- Barium carbonate has a solubility of 0.002 g per 100 ml of cold water.
- Barium hydroxide has a solubility of 5.6 g per 100 ml of cold water.
Comparing the solubilities, we can see that barium carbonate is significantly less soluble than barium hydroxide. This indicates that when excess barium nitrate solution is added to the dissolved sodium hydroxide, a reaction is likely to occur leading to the precipitation of the less soluble compound, which is barium carbonate.
Therefore, based on the solubility differences, it is reasonable to conclude that the precipitate formed in this equation is likely to be barium carbonate.