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Phosphoric Acid

Gist

Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) is a weak mineral acid used in food, agriculture, and industry, and it is found as a clear liquid or white crystalline solid. In foods, it's used as an acidulant and preservative, while in fertilizers, it promotes plant growth. Due to its corrosive nature, concentrated solutions require protective gear to avoid skin, eye, and respiratory irritation.

Phosphoric acid has numerous uses, most notably in the production of phosphate fertilizers. It is also used in the food and beverage industry as an acidic flavoring agent and preservative, particularly in soft drinks. Other common applications include metal treatment, cleaning products, water treatment, detergents, and in the manufacturing of some pharmaceuticals and personal care products. 

Summary

Phosphoric acid (orthophosphoric acid, monophosphoric acid or phosphoric(V) acid) is a colorless, odorless phosphorus-containing solid, and inorganic compound with the chemical formula H3PO4. It is commonly encountered as an 85% aqueous solution, which is a colourless, odourless, and non-volatile syrupy liquid. It is a major industrial chemical, being a component of many fertilizers.

The name "orthophosphoric acid" can be used to distinguish this specific acid from other "phosphoric acids", such as pyrophosphoric acid. Nevertheless, the term "phosphoric acid" often means this specific compound; and that is the current IUPAC nomenclature.

Purification

Phosphoric acid produced from phosphate rock or thermal processes often requires purification. A common purification method is liquid–liquid extraction, which involves the separation of phosphoric acid from water and other impurities using organic solvents, such as tributyl phosphate (TBP), methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), or n-octanol. Nanofiltration involves the use of a premodified nanofiltration membrane, which is functionalized by a deposit of a high molecular weight polycationic polymer of polyethyleneimines. Nanofiltration has been shown to significantly reduce the concentrations of various impurities, including cadmium, aluminum, iron, and rare earth elements. The laboratory and industrial pilot scale results showed that this process allows the production of food-grade phosphoric acid.

Fractional crystallization can achieve higher purities typically used for semiconductor applications. Usually a static crystallizer is used. A static crystallizer uses vertical plates, which are suspended in the molten feed and which are alternatingly cooled and heated by a heat transfer medium. The process begins with the slow cooling of the heat transfer medium below the freezing point of the stagnant melt. This cooling causes a layer of crystals to grow on the plates. Impurities are rejected from the growing crystals and are concentrated in the remaining melt. After the desired fraction has been crystallized, the remaining melt is drained from the crystallizer. The purer crystalline layer remains adhered to the plates. In a subsequent step, the plates are heated again to liquify the crystals and the purified phosphoric acid drained into the product vessel. The crystallizer is filled with feed again and the next cooling cycle is started.

Details

Phosphoric acid, (H3PO4) is the most important oxygen acid of phosphorus, used to make phosphate salts for fertilizers. It is also used in dental cements, in the preparation of albumin derivatives, and in the sugar and textile industries. It serves as an acidic, fruitlike flavouring in food products.

Pure phosphoric acid is a crystalline solid (melting point 42.35° C, or 108.2° F); in less concentrated form it is a colourless syrupy liquid. The crude acid is prepared from phosphate rock, while acid of higher purity is made from white phosphorus.

Phosphoric acid forms three classes of salts corresponding to replacement of one, two, or three hydrogen atoms. Among the important phosphate salts are: sodium dihydrogen phosphate (NaH2PO4), used for control of hydrogen ion concentration (acidity) of solutions; disodium hydrogen phosphate (Na2HPO4), used in water treatment as a precipitant for highly charged metal cations; trisodium phosphate (Na3PO4), used in soaps and detergents; calcium dihydrogen phosphate or calcium superphosphate (Ca[H2PO4]2), a major fertilizer ingredient; calcium monohydrogen phosphate (CaHPO4), used as a conditioning agent for salts and sugars.

Phosphoric acid molecules interact under suitable conditions, often at high temperatures, to form larger molecules (usually with loss of water). Thus, diphosphoric, or pyrophosphoric, acid (H4P2O7) is formed from two molecules of phosphoric acid, less one molecule of water. It is the simplest of a homologous series of long chain molecules called polyphosphoric acids, with the general formula H(HPO3)nOH, in which n = 2, 3, 4, . . . . Metaphosphoric acids, (HPO3)n, in which n = 3, 4, 5, . . ., are another class of polymeric phosphoric acids. The known metaphosphoric acids are characterized by cyclic molecular structures. The term metaphosphoric acid is used also to refer to a viscous, sticky substance that is a mixture of both long chain and ring forms of (HPO3)n. The various polymeric forms of phosphoric acid are also prepared by hydration of phosphorus oxides.

Additional Information

Phosphoric acid, also known as orthophosphoric acid, is a chemical compound. It is also an acid. Its chemical formula is H3PO4. It contains hydrogen and phosphate ions. Its official IUPAC name is trihydroxidooxidophosphorus.

Properties

Phosphoric acid is a white solid. It melts easily to make a viscous liquid. It tastes sour when diluted (mixed with a lot of water). It can be deprotonated three times. It is very strong, although not as much as the other acids like hydrochloric acid. It does not have any odor. It is corrosive when concentrated. Salts of phosphoric acid are called phosphates.

Preparation

Phosphoric acid can be made by dissolving phosphorus(V) oxide in water. This makes a very pure phosphoric acid that is good for food. A less pure form is made by reacting sulfuric acid with phosphate rock. This can be purified to make food-grade phosphoric acid if needed.

Uses

It is used to make sodas sour. It is also used when a nonreactive acid is needed. It can be used to make hydrogen halides, such as hydrogen chloride. Phosphoric acid is heated with a sodium halide to make the hydrogen halide and sodium phosphate. It is used to react with rust to make black iron(III) phosphate, which can be scraped off, leaving pure iron. It can be used to clean teeth.

There are many minor uses of phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid with a certain isotope of phosphorus is used for nuclear magnetic resonance. It is also used as an electrolyte in some fuel cells. It can be used as a flux. It can etch certain things in semiconductor making.

Safety

Phosphoric acid is one of the least toxic acids. When it is diluted, it just has a sour taste. When it is concentrated, it can corrode metals.

Lawrencium

Gist

Lawrencium (Lr) is a synthetic, radioactive element with atomic number 103, belonging to the actinide series. It is a highly reactive metal that does not occur naturally and is only produced in tiny quantities for scientific research. Due to its instability, it has a short half-life, though the longest-lived isotope, \(Lr\)-262, has a half-life of about 3.6 hours. It was named after Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of the cyclotron.

Lawrencium has no large-scale commercial or industrial uses because it is a synthetic, highly radioactive element produced in only tiny quantities. Its primary and sole use is for scientific research, where it helps scientists study superheavy elements, nuclear reactions, and electron configurations in laboratory settings.    

Summary

Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. A radioactive metal, lawrencium is the eleventh transuranium element, the third transfermium, and the last member of the actinide series. Like all elements with atomic number over 100, lawrencium can only be produced in particle accelerators by bombarding lighter elements with charged particles. Fourteen isotopes of lawrencium are currently known; the most stable is 266Lr with half-life 11 hours, but the shorter-lived 260Lr (half-life 2.7 minutes) is most commonly used in chemistry because it can be produced on a larger scale.

Chemistry experiments confirm that lawrencium behaves as a heavier homolog to lutetium in the periodic table, and is a trivalent element. It thus could also be classified as the first of the 7th-period transition metals. Its electron configuration is anomalous for its position in the periodic table, having an s2p configuration instead of the s2d configuration of its homolog lutetium. However, this does not appear to affect lawrencium's chemistry.

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, many claims of the synthesis of element 103 of varying quality were made from laboratories in the Soviet Union and the United States. The priority of the discovery and therefore the name of the element was disputed between Soviet and American scientists. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) initially established lawrencium as the official name for the element and gave the American team credit for the discovery; this was reevaluated in 1992, giving both teams shared credit for the discovery but not changing the element's name.

Details

Lawrencium (Lr) is a synthetic chemical element, the 14th member of the actinoid series of the periodic table, atomic number 103. Not occurring in nature, lawrencium (probably as the isotope lawrencium-257) was first produced (1961) by chemists Albert Ghiorso, T. Sikkeland, A.E. Larsh, and R.M. Latimer at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding a mixture of the longest-lived isotopes of californium (atomic number 98) with boron ions (atomic number 5) accelerated in a heavy-ion linear accelerator. The element was named after American physicist Ernest O. Lawrence. A team of Soviet scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna discovered (1965) lawrencium-256 (26-second half-life), which the Berkeley group later used in a study with approximately 1,500 atoms to show that lawrencium behaves more like the tripositive elements in the actinoid series than like predominantly dipositive nobelium (atomic number 102). The longest-lasting isotope, lawrencium-262, has a half-life of about 3.6 hours.

Element Properties

atomic number  :  103
stablest isotope  :  262
oxidation state  :  +3.

Additional Information

The element is named after Ernest Lawrence, who invented the cyclotron particle accelerator. This was designed to accelerate sub-atomic particles around a circle until they have enough energy to smash into an atom and create a new atom. This image is based on the abstract particle trails produced in a cyclotron.

Appearance

A radioactive metal of which only a few atoms have ever been created.

Uses

Lawrencium has no uses outside research.

Biological role

Lawrencium has no known biological role.

Natural abundance

Lawrencium does not occur naturally. It is produced by bombarding californium with boron.

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Ammonia

Gist

Ammonia (NH3 is a colorless, pungent gas composed of nitrogen and hydrogen, commonly used in household cleaners and fertilizers. It is a natural byproduct in the human body from protein breakdown but can be toxic at high concentrations. Ammonia's properties include being highly soluble in water, having a strong odor, and being highly alkaline.  

Ammonia is used primarily in agriculture to make fertilizers, and also for industrial purposes like producing plastics, dyes, explosives, and synthetic fibers. It is also found in household products like glass and surface cleaners, and used in applications such as refrigeration and as a fuel for some rockets. 

Summary

Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3. A stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pungent smell. It is widely used in fertilizers, refrigerants, explosives, cleaning agents, and is a precursor for numerous chemicals. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous waste, and it contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to fertilisers. Around 70% of ammonia produced industrially is used to make fertilisers in various forms and composition, such as urea and diammonium phosphate. Ammonia in pure form is also applied directly into the soil.

Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many chemicals. In many countries, it is classified as an extremely hazardous substance. Ammonia is toxic, causing damage to cells and tissues. For this reason it is excreted by most animals in the urine, in the form of dissolved urea.

Ammonia is produced biologically in a process called nitrogen fixation, but even more is generated industrially by the Haber process. The process helped revolutionize agriculture by providing cheap fertilizers. The global industrial production of ammonia in 2021 was 235 million tonnes. Industrial ammonia is transported by road in tankers, by rail in tank wagons, by sea in gas carriers, or in cylinders. Ammonia occurs in nature and has been detected in the interstellar medium.

Ammonia boils at −33.34 °C (−28.012 °F) at a pressure of one atmosphere, but the liquid can often be handled in the laboratory without external cooling. Household ammonia or ammonium hydroxide is a solution of ammonia in water.

Details

Ammonia (NH3) is a colourless, pungent gas composed of nitrogen and hydrogen. It is the simplest stable compound of these elements and serves as a starting material for the production of many commercially important nitrogen compounds.

Uses of ammonia

The major use of ammonia is as a fertilizer. In the United States, it is usually applied directly to the soil from tanks containing the liquefied gas. The ammonia can also be in the form of ammonium salts, such as ammonium nitrate, NH4NO3, ammonium sulfate, (NH4)2SO4, and various ammonium phosphates. Urea, (H2N)2C=O, is the most commonly used source of nitrogen for fertilizer worldwide. Ammonia is also used in the manufacture of commercial explosives (e.g., trinitrotoluene [TNT], nitroglycerin, and nitrocellulose).

In the textile industry, ammonia is used in the manufacture of synthetic fibres, such as nylon and rayon. In addition, it is employed in the dyeing and scouring of cotton, wool, and silk. Ammonia serves as a catalyst in the production of some synthetic resins. More important, it neutralizes acidic by-products of petroleum refining, and in the rubber industry it prevents the coagulation of raw latex during transportation from plantation to factory. Ammonia also finds application in both the ammonia-soda process (also called the Solvay process), a widely used method for producing soda ash, and the Ostwald process, a method for converting ammonia into nitric acid.

Ammonia is used in various metallurgical processes, including the nitriding of alloy sheets to harden their surfaces. Because ammonia can be decomposed easily to yield hydrogen, it is a convenient portable source of atomic hydrogen for welding. In addition, ammonia can absorb substantial amounts of heat from its surroundings (i.e., one gram of ammonia absorbs 327 calories of heat), which makes it useful as a coolant in refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. Finally, among its minor uses is inclusion in certain household cleansing agents.

Preparation of ammonia

Pure ammonia was first prepared by English physical scientist Joseph Priestley in 1774, and its exact composition was determined by French chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet in 1785. Ammonia is consistently among the top five chemicals produced in the United States. The chief commercial method of producing ammonia is by the Haber-Bosch process, which involves the direct reaction of elemental hydrogen and elemental nitrogen.
N2 + 3H2 → 2NH3

This reaction requires the use of a catalyst, high pressure (100–1,000 atmospheres), and elevated temperature (400–550 °C [750–1020 °F]). Actually, the equilibrium between the elements and ammonia favours the formation of ammonia at low temperature, but high temperature is required to achieve a satisfactory rate of ammonia formation. Several different catalysts can be used. Normally the catalyst is iron containing iron oxide. However, both magnesium oxide on aluminum oxide that has been activated by alkali metal oxides and ruthenium on carbon have been employed as catalysts. In the laboratory, ammonia is best synthesized by the hydrolysis of a metal nitride.
Mg3N2 + 6H2O → 2NH3 + 3Mg(OH)2

Physical properties of ammonia

Ammonia is a colourless gas with a sharp, penetrating odour. Its boiling point is −33.35 °C (−28.03 °F), and its freezing point is −77.7 °C (−107.8 °F). It has a high heat of vaporization (23.3 kilojoules per mole at its boiling point) and can be handled as a liquid in thermally insulated containers in the laboratory. (The heat of vaporization of a substance is the number of kilojoules needed to vaporize one mole of the substance with no change in temperature.) The ammonia molecule has a trigonal pyramidal shape with the three hydrogen atoms and an unshared pair of electrons attached to the nitrogen atom. It is a polar molecule and is highly associated because of strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding. The dielectric constant of ammonia (22 at −34 °C [−29 °F]) is lower than that of water (81 at 25 °C [77 °F]), so it is a better solvent for organic materials. However, it is still high enough to allow ammonia to act as a moderately good ionizing solvent. Ammonia also self-ionizes, although less so than does water.

Additional Information

Ammonia is a colorless, poisonous gas with a familiar noxious odor. It occurs in nature, primarily produced by anaerobic decay of plant and animal matter; and it also has been detected in outer space. Some plants, mainly legumes, in combination with rhizobia bacteria, “fix” atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia.

Ammonia has been known by its odor since ancient times. It was isolated in the 18th century by notable chemists Joseph Black (Scotland), Peter Woulfe (Ireland), Carl Wilhelm Scheele (Sweden/Germany), and Joseph Priestley (England). In 1785, French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet determined its elemental composition.

Ammonia is produced commercially via the catalytic reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen at high temperature and pressure. The process was developed in 1909 by German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. Both received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work, but in widely separated years: Haber in 1918 and Bosch in 1931. The fundamental Haber–Bosch process is still in use today.

In 2020, the worldwide ammonia production capacity was 224 million tonnes (Mt). Actual production was 187 Mt. It ranks ninth among chemicals produced globally.

Most ammonia production—≈85%—is used directly or indirectly in agriculture. Chemical fertilizers made from ammonia include urea, ammonium phosphate, ammonium nitrate, and other nitrates. Other important chemicals produced from ammonia include nitric acid, hydrazine, cyanides, and amino acids.

Ammonia was once used widely as a refrigerant. It has largely been displaced by chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons, which are also under environmental scrutiny. Probably the most familiar household use of ammonia is in glass cleaners.

Ammonia is highly soluble in water; its exact solubility depends on temperature. Aqueous ammonia is also called ammonium hydroxide, but that molecule cannot be isolated. When ammonia is used as a ligand in coordination complexes, it is called “ammine”.

Currently ammonia is made from fossil fuel–derived hydrogen and is therefore not a “green” product, despite its widespread use in agriculture. But environmentally green ammonia may be on the horizon if the hydrogen is made by other means, such as wind- or solar-powered electrolysis of water.

Ammonia can be burned as a fuel in standard engines. A study by the catalyst company Haldor Topsoe (Kongens Lyngby, Denmark) concluded that replacing conventional ship fuels with green ammonia would be cost-efficient and would eliminate a significant source of greenhouse gases. It potentially can be used in aircraft fuels as well. During a transition period, ammonia could be mixed with conventional fuels.

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