Tin and lead. Fun chemistry experience at home

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Tin and lead. Chemical experiments

Entertaining experiments in chemistry

Entertaining experiences at home / Chemistry experiments for children

Metals are not very convenient for experiments: experiments with them require, as a rule, complex equipment. But some experiments can be done in the home laboratory.

Let's start with tin. Hardware stores sell metal tin sticks for soldering. With such a small ingot, you can do an experiment: take a tin stick with both hands and bend it - a distinct crunch will be heard.

Metallic tin has such a crystal structure that when bent, the crystals of the metal seem to rub against each other, a crackling sound occurs. By the way, on this basis, one can distinguish pure tin from tin alloys - an alloy stick does not make any sounds when bent.

And now let's try to get tin from empty cans, from the very ones that are better not to be thrown away, but to be scrapped. Most of the cans are tin-plated on the inside, that is, they are covered with a layer of tin, which protects the iron from oxidation and food from spoilage. This tin can be recovered and reused.

First of all, an empty jar must be properly cleaned. Regular washing is not enough, so pour a concentrated solution of washing soda into the jar and put it on fire for half an hour so that the washing solution boils properly. Drain the solution and rinse the jar two to three times with water. Now we can consider it clean.

We need two or three flashlight batteries connected in series; you can, as mentioned above, take a rectifier with a transformer or a 9-12 V battery. Whatever the current source, attach a tin can to its positive pole (carefully make sure that there is good contact - you can punch a small hole in the top of the can and put a wire in it). Connect the negative pole to some piece of iron, for example, with a large nail cleaned to a shine. Lower the iron electrode into the jar so that it does not touch the bottom and walls. How to hang it - figure it out yourself, this is a simple thing. Pour a solution of alkali-caustic soda (handle with extreme care!) or washing soda into the jar; the first option is better, but requires extreme accuracy in work.

Since the alkali solution will be needed more than once for experiments, we will tell you here how to prepare it. Add washing soda Na₂CO₃ to a solution of slaked lime Ca(OH)₂ and boil the mixture. As a result of the reaction, caustic soda NaOH and calcium carbonate, i.e. chalk, are formed, practically insoluble in water. This means that in the solution, which, after cooling, must be filtered, only alkali will remain. But back to the tin can experience. Soon, gas bubbles will begin to form on the iron electrode, and the tin from the can will gradually go into solution. But what if it is necessary to obtain not a solution containing tin, but the metal itself? Well, this is also possible. Remove the iron electrode from the solution and replace it with a carbon one. Here you will again be helped by an old battery that has served its purpose, in a zinc cup of which there is a network of a carbon rod. Remove it and connect it with a wire to the negative pole of your current source. Spongy tin will settle on the rod during electrolysis, and if the voltage is chosen correctly, this will happen quite quickly. True, it may happen that the tin from one can is not enough. Then take another jar, carefully cut it into pieces with special metal scissors and put it inside the jar in which the electrolyte is poured. Be careful: the cuttings must not touch the carbon rod!

The tin collected on the electrode can be melted down. Turn off the current, take out a carbon rod with sponge tin, put it in a porcelain cup or in a clean metal jar and hold it on fire. Soon the tin will melt into a dense ingot. Do not touch him or the jar until they are cold!

Part of the spongy tin can not be melted down, but left for other experiments. If you dissolve it in hydrochloric acid - in small pieces and with moderate heating - you get a solution of tin chloride. Prepare such a solution with a concentration of about 7% and add, while stirring, an alkali solution of a slightly higher concentration, about 10%. At first a white precipitate will fall out, but soon it will dissolve in excess alkali. You've got a solution of sodium stannite - the same one you had in the beginning when you started to dissolve the tin from the jar. But if so, then the first part of the experiment - the transfer of the metal from the can to the solution - can no longer be repeated, but proceed immediately to its second part, when the metal settles on the electrode. This will save you a lot of time if you want to get more tin from cans.

Lead melts even more easily than tin. Place a few pellets in a small crucible or in a metal can from shoe polish and heat on a flame. When the lead is melted, carefully remove the jar from the heat by grasping the rim with a large, sturdy pair of tweezers or pliers. Pour the lead melt into a plaster or metal mold, or just into a sand hole - this is how you get a homemade lead casting. If, however, the molten lead is further calcined in air, then after a few hours a red coating forms on the surface of the metal - mixed lead oxide; under the name "red lead" it was often used before for the preparation of paints.

Lead, like many other metals, reacts with acids, displacing hydrogen from them. But try to put lead in concentrated hydrochloric acid - it will not dissolve in it. Take another, obviously weaker acid - acetic acid. In it, lead, though slowly, but dissolves!

This paradox is explained by the fact that when interacting with hydrochloric acid, poorly soluble lead chloride PbCl is formed.₂. Covering the surface of the metal, it prevents its further interaction with the acid. But lead acetate Pb (CH₃SOO)₂, which is obtained by reaction with acetic acid, dissolves well and does not interfere with the interaction of acid and metal.

Author: Olgin O.M.

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