Cillet Bang!

[richardandtracy]

Re: Acids + salt

Uhh, Maybe it'll be a bad idea to use Cillet Bang on a boat.

Salt + Cillit Bang = Sodium - Cillit Bang salt + Chlorine

Maybe, works with batteries. What do I know? I only did A Level Chemistry, and can't aspire to lofty institution membership on that basis..

Regards

Richard.

 

[iangrant]

I think from the chemists deliberations below I think the answer may be yes, or is it no?

Ian

 

[nealeb]

Re: Getting rid of sodium cyanide

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, that's good advice and is, I would think, the proper way to go. You might, however, have to pay for the disposal. From memory, the stuff is used in the metal plating industry: are there any users near you who might be prepared to accept the stuff and handle it properly? If not, they would be well-placed to advise on its disposal.

I agree that it MUST NOT get into water courses.

[/ QUOTE ]
It was a few years ago, and in the end my wife persuaded a local pharmacist to take it off our hands (against their better judgement!). I have handled enough chemicals and know enough about its toxicity to take it seriously. It dated from wartime or a bit after and no-one knew it was there until I cleared his garage. I was glad that it was in a glass jar and not a rusty tin!

As for Cillett Bang and seawater - I would worry about that about as much as I worry about battery acid and seawater, which is not at all. Can't believe that there is any real problem there.

 

[BrendanS]

Re: Getting rid of sodium cyanide

[ QUOTE ]
As for Cillett Bang and seawater

[/ QUOTE ]

absolutely no problem at all!

 

[VicS]

Re: Acids + salt = acid + salt

Sorry but I'm inclined to deduce from that that you failed your A level chemistry!

Concentrated sulphuric acid + sodium chloride (common salt) -> sodium sulphate + hydrogen chloride gas

Acid (dilute) + sodium hypochlorite (bleach) -> salt + water + chorine gas

The first reaction is the standard laboratory preparation of hydrogen chloride.
The second is one of the easy methods for producing chlorine in the laboratory, bleaching powder, (roughly calcium hypochlorite) more usually being used rather than sodium hypochrorite solution. It is the reaction which produces chlorine when an acid cleaning product, such as lavatory cleaner, and a chlorine bleach such as Domestos, are mixed. The boys' toilets then disappear in a greenish haze, the caretaker emerges coughing his insides up and dies an agonising death sometime later.

The current standard laboratory prep of chlorine is by the reaction between potassium permanganate and concentated hydrochoric acid. Other methods include the action of concentrated sulphuric on a mixture of common salt and manganese dioxide and the reaction between concenrated hydrochloric acid and manganese dioxide. Both of these requiring heat. They are not used these days, I think, because there have been some mishaps due to impurities in the manganese dioxide or perhaps potassium permangante has been used by mistake.

(Conc sulphuric acid + potassium permanganate = big trouble, in fact one has to take particular care not to pick up the conc sulphuric acid instead of the hydrochloric in the currently used method.

You will notice that where chlorine is produced from sodium, or hydrogen, chloride an oxidising agent, either potassium permanganate or manganese dioxide, is also involved because chloride ion to chlorine is an oxidation reaction.

The problem with salt water and batteries, I think, stems from the fact that electrolysis of sodium chloride produces chlorine at the anode.

2 chloride ions - 2 an electrons -> chlorine gas (An oxidation reaction)

Not too big a problem in a well ventillated yacht perhaps but I understand a serious consideration in the confines of a submarine! Electrolysis of salt solution is the basis of commercial production of chlorine.

Enough of this it's supposed to be a boating forum not an A level chemistry tutorial!

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