01.05: Attempted Recovery of Iron(II) Chloride

Somehow, I managed to find some inspiration deep within me to get this video filmed, edited, scripted, voice-recorded, and uploaded in one day. I’m not sure how, but I did it!

In the process, I completely destroyed my first set of backdrops, and learned that trying to recover iron(II) chloride is almost pointless.

First things first. There has to be abetter way to do this! I still have half of the oxidized garbage left, and I’d like to see if there’s a better way to recover it. By better, I mean more efficient and less labor-intensive. By less labor-intensive, I mean not having to pick through insoluble debris with tweezers to rescue small crystals that are dissolving before my eyes.

Second, the recovered iron(II) chloride has (in just a few hours) already started turning brown again. It wasn’t perfectly dry, and that’s where the trouble comes from. So all that work of plucking out pretty green crystals has gone out of the window.

Here’s what I’m thinking: I have two liters of an iron(III) chloride solution. (It started as a mixed iron(II)-iron(III) chloride solution, but by the time I get back to it, all of the iron(II) will be oxidized to iron(III).) I also have many iron nails in stock and waiting for a use. My plan, eventually, is to concentrate those two liters of solution down to the point just before they start precipitating iron(III) chloride. Then add a little bit of hydrochloric acid to lower the pH and bring down the oxidizing potential a little bit. Then throw in a bunch of iron nails and let it sit in a closed container. Eventually, the iron(III) should be reduced to iron(II) and the whole thing should turn green. The next step after that will be an extended stay in a vacuum desiccator over calcium chloride (or some other suitable desiccant). If that works, I’ll just dissolve what I can of the remaining garbage and go straight for the reduction step. Forget fishing out the crystals.

That’s a project for another time. I’m almost done with the first series, and I’d like to finish by the end of the year. The holidays are upon us, and I’ve got some baking to do. HausLab is about exploring and experimenting in general, not just with chemistry, so there will be non-chemistry videos and posts popping up from time to time. I’m already working on the first in that series. Which might delay the last few videos in the first series a little bit.

We’re getting to the exciting part!

–Jason