what is the ice for and why cool acids?

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duke1025

Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2020
Messages
19
i have an odd question, i'm seeing people cooling acids (mostly sulfuric) with ice? i don't understand the reason exactly... i'm missing something... why cool it with ice, what is the real reason?

thanks!
 
For aqua regia, hot strong acid dissolves silver chloride, cold diluted doesn't and then you can filter it off.

For sulfuric cell (deplating), if the temperature gets too hot it starts to dissolve base metals instead of the gold. In this case ice isn't added to the acid as dilute acid also stops the cell from working.

I would never use ice to dilute sulfuric acid, I would pour acid into water instead to be safe.

Göran
 
Hot acids are dangerous and hard to control. Hence the need to keep them at a stable and predictable temperature.

The proper way to keep acid cooled to a working temp and under control is to have the ice water in a separate container and put the reaction vessel in the ice water bath. Do this BEFORE you start the reaction or activity that would heat up the acid.

Putting ice/ice water directly in hot acid would make a steam explosion of hot acid. You could/would be severely burned, blinded or worse.

Always put acid in the water, never water in the acid. 1st rule of chemistry. (Well maybe 2nd after don't stick your nose in the bottle to smell to try to determine what it is.)

Edit to add;

Hot acids are sometimes needed to make the process work better as has been mentioned with AR. BUT, I always let my AR cool down on it's own. I've seen what happens when someone tries to hurry the cool down of a runaway hot acid reaction. It. Was. Not. Pretty. Life is to short to save a few hours that way.
 
Thank you both g_axelsson & RickBB, i got it now. it makes sense. i seen a new video by sreetips this week, yep another new one. and he shows cooling down with large ice pieces...don't know what video it was but it was 1-8 reverse electrolysis of gold. he makes it look soooo easy, it's like magix... poof...he's an alchemist!
 
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