Australia's Science Forum

I am trying to make a 10% Barium Chloride solution for a Year 12 quantitative sulfate analysis. It WILL NOT dissolve.
I've had it sitting on the magnetic stirrer for about half an hour and still the solution is totally cloudy. When I let it rest it looks like a flocculant - and settles to leave a clear supernatant.
I know Barium Chloride is supposed to be soluble in water at this concentration and I'm sure (I think) it used to dissolve to a clear solution when I made it up in the waters lab I used to work in.

Can someone please explain what is going on?

Carol

I have done a 5%, that worked out fine. 37g will disolve in 100g water, with no trouble. Perhaps 10% is a little too much.

I have had trouble with dissolving barium chloride in the past. Have you got heat as well as the magnetic stirrer? If it can dissolve 37g/100ml then 10% should be ok (that's 10g/100ml isn't it?). I remember I couldn't make a 1M solution because it just wouldn't dissolve.

Hi All,

Barium Chloride has a limit of 37g/100mL as a solubility constant. You will find that the BaCl₂ will be difficult to dissolve at this mass with 100mL even upon heating, because it will just fall back out of solution once it is cooled as crystals.


Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Robb.....

Yes, I heated and stirred 50g in 500mL water (10%). I'm thinking of filtering the solution - it will still precipitate out the sulfate.

Thanks

Carol

What is your MT weight on the Barium Chloride you are using?????????

How old is it???????

It's pretty old. The bottles in the store are just labelled barium chloride with no information on molecular weight or whether its BaCl2 or BaCl2.2H2O. Either way it should still dissolve.

Carol

Put it for collection/pick up, and perhaps purchase a fresh one. See how that goes.

not sure if I can remember accurately but....From another life time, i used a method to determine sulfate by adding barium chloride to water samples and a ppt formed - the higher the conc of sulfate, the denser the suspension. If the amt of BaCl you're adding is below the solubility I'm wondering if there might be some reaction with the water you're using to make the solution. Is it tap water ( which often is great for my junior school here) or is it something better like distilled or deionised?

Just a thought.....or maybe I've got it all wrong.

This is my risk assessment sheet for barium chloride hope you can find something that can help you

Hi Jazz,

I found your risk assessment sheet on Barium Chloride very interesting. Do you have a sheet like that on all the chemicals that you have?

Wendy

Risk Assessment is fantastic! Where did you get it? I would love that style for all my chemicals....

hi
I did it

Hey Jazz
Did you create that risk assessment sheet or is on some website?
How do I get access? as I wanted to create a reciepe data base and that would be re-inventing the wheel if this is out there

Hi
I did these Risk assessments sheets for the Parramatta Diocese Catholic Schools. They are accessible now through Staff net OH&S site.
They are combination of MSDS (latest upgrades), CSIS book and CLEEPS cards. As far as I know there is nothing similar on the net accept for the CLEEPS cards but they are from UK and they are not comply with our legislation 100%. I do have quite big recipe collection with risk assessments and I’ll be looking for the publisher soon. If I find someone who is interested I’ll let you now.
labels with a dot are included as well