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+ Inorganic chemistry
+ Solvents
+ Sulfur
+ Precipitation
+ Solution chemistry
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Al Grayson

How can I dissolve elemental sulfur in inorganic solvents (such as...

Andrew Wiltshire  Follow

Hi
Good conversations
We tried to dissolve only 3-5% of sulfur powder (Yellow in color) in a ester oil but it just settled down gravimetrically. Does anyone have any idea helping this issue?

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Chen Tang  Follow

Sulfur is only soluble in carbon-disulfide as far as I know.

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Allan Nicholas  Follow

Sulfur can be dissolved in a strong aqueous solution of ammoniumsulphide.



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Brittany Roma  Follow

Hi Saeed,
I am sorry, I misunderstood your question slightly, therefore the references I gave earlier will be of little use. Here is the way, I would try to analyse the sample which should oxidise, both the elemental sulphur as well as the sulfide ions:
1. Roast your sample under a stream of air and bubble the out-stream through a washing bottle with water. You will here oxidise all the sulphur in the sample to SO2 (make sure, you heat up enough to actually oxidise all the sulphur) and the SO2 will dissolve in your washing water. Again, you will need to use enough water, so that none of the SO2 gets lost.
2. Add H2O2 and Ba2+ to your washing solution. H2O2 will oxidise SO2 to SO3 (and therefore form H2SO4 with the surrounding water) and the sulphate anions will precipitate with Ba2+. Add both to propel the oxidation reaction. Adding some HCl would also be beneficial to make sure that you do not precipitate Ba(OH)2.
Hope that helps, all the Best.

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Albert Donnay  Follow

If you have no instruments such as HPLC you simply extract rthe elemental sulfur from your sample with cyclohexane or toluene, filtrate and evaporate the solvent in a hood. The residue will be S8 which can be determined gravimetrically as such or you can determine its concentration in the organic phase by UV spectroscopy. The solubility of S8 inorganic solvents is as follows:
Ethanol (C2H5OH) 0.066
Acetone [(CH3)2CO] 0.079
Diethyl ether [(C2H5)2O] 0.181
Dimethyl formamide (DMF) 0.191
n-Hexane (C6H14) 0.40
Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) 0.832
Nitrobenzene (C6H5NO2) 0.856
Chloroform (CHCl3) 1.164
Cyclohexane (C6H12) 1.185
Aniline (C6H5NH2) 1.259
Xylene [(CH3)2C6H4] 2.051
Toluene (CH3C6H5) 2.070
Benzene (C6H6) 2.093
Chlorobenzene (C6H5Cl) 2.370
Carbondisulfide (CS2) 34.8
good luck!

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Albert Hsieh  Follow

Thanks a lot Joachim. I will certainly try to test your approach.
Have a good day!

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Atheism Now  Follow

Following

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Alex Osyatnikov  Follow

If you don't have sophisticated equipment mentioned before, I would go, for lack of a better option, for toluene and such like. Mind you, there will be some inaccuracies, probably, associated with the fact that toluene still dissolves some other stuff to a small degree. 

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Bergen Furniture And Design  Follow

Hi, I came across a sample of sulfur powder but it does not dissolve in CS2. What is the possible reason?

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Chris Conrad  Follow

First you should determine the species of sulfur in your sample - if that is sulphate and you have Ca, Ba? Sr or Pb in your sample, the sulphates will not be dissolved.
Similarly, if you have sulphides in your sample, depending on the metal, only oxidative digestion can be used, because simple acids cannot dissolve the sulphides of the  cationic class II (qual. anal.). 

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Aminat Aregbe  Follow

Please use Bromine water, Conc. HNO3, Conc. Hcl, heat, boil, NaCl, at the end treat with BaCl2, filter out ppt. of Barium Sulfate

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