Conversations on Chemistry Part 53

Very well: and you will be careful to remember that the metals are incapable of entering into this combination with acids, unless they are previously oxydated; therefore, whenever you bring a metal in contact with an acid, it will be first oxydated and afterwards dissolved, provided that there be a sufficient quant.i.ty of acid for both operations.

There are some metals, however, whose solution is more easily accomplished, by diluting the acid in water; and the metal will, in this case, be oxydated, not by the acid, but by the water, which it will decompose. But in proportion as the oxygen of the water oxydates the surface of the metal, the acid combines with it, washes it off, and leaves a fresh surface for the oxygen to act upon: then other coats of oxyd are successively formed, and rapidly dissolved by the acid, which continues combining with the new-formed surfaces of oxyd till the whole of the metal is dissolved. During this process the hydrogen gas of the water is disengaged, and flies off with effervescence.

EMILY.

Was not this the manner in which the sulphuric acid a.s.sisted the iron filings in decomposing water?

MRS. B.

Exactly; and it is thus that several metals, which are incapable alone of decomposing water, are enabled to do it by the a.s.sistance of an acid, which, by continually washing off the covering of oxyd, as it is formed, prepares a fresh surface of metal to act upon the water.

CAROLINE.

The acid here seems to act a part not very different from that of a scrubbing-brush. --But pray would not this be a good method of cleaning metallic utensils?

MRS. B.

Yes; on some occasions a weak acid, as vinegar, is used for cleaning copper. Iron plates, too, are freed from the rust on their surface by diluted muriatic acid, previous to their being covered with tin. You must remember, however, that in this mode of cleaning metals the acid should be quickly afterwards wiped off, otherwise it would produce fresh oxyd.

CAROLINE.

Let us watch the dissolution of the copper in the nitric acid; for I am very impatient to see the salt that is to result from it. The mixture is now of a beautiful blue colour; but there is no appearance of the formation of a salt; it seems to be a tedious operation.

MRS. B.

The crystallisation of the salt requires some length of time to be completed; if, however, you are so impatient, I can easily show you a metallic salt already formed.

CAROLINE.

But that would not satisfy my curiosity half so well as one of our own manufacturing.

MRS. B.

It is one of our own preparing that I mean to show you. When we decomposed water a few days since, by the oxydation of iron filings through the a.s.sistance of sulphuric acid, in what did the process consist?

CAROLINE.

In proportion as the water yielded its oxygen to the iron, the acid combined with the new-formed oxyd, and the hydrogen escaped alone.

MRS. B.

Very well; the result, therefore, was a compound salt, formed by the combination of sulphuric acid with oxyd of iron. It still remains in the vessel in which the experiment was performed. Fetch it, and we shall examine it.

EMILY.

What a variety of processes the decomposition of water, by a metal and an acid, implies; 1st, the decomposition of the water; 2dly, the oxydation of the metal; and 3dly, the formation of a compound salt.

CAROLINE.

Here it is, Mrs. B. --What beautiful green crystals! But we do not perceive any crystals in the solution of copper in nitrous acid?

MRS. B.

Because the salt is now suspended in the water which the nitrous acid contains, and will remain so till it is deposited in consequence of rest and cooling.

EMILY.

I am surprised that a body so opake as iron can be converted into such transparent crystals.

MRS. B.

It is the union with the acid that produces the transparency; for if the pure metal were melted, and afterwards permitted to cool and crystallise, it would be found just as opake as before.

EMILY.

I do not understand the exact meaning of _crystallisation_?

MRS. B.

You recollect that when a solid body is dissolved either by water or caloric it is not decomposed; but that its integrant parts are only suspended in the solvent. When the solution is made in water, the integrant particles of the body will, on the water being evaporated, again unite into a solid ma.s.s by the force of their mutual attraction.

But when the body is dissolved by caloric alone, nothing more is necessary, in order to make its particles reunite, than to reduce its temperature. And, in general, if the solvent, whether water or caloric, be slowly separated by evaporation or by cooling, and care taken that the particles be not agitated during their reunion, they will arrange themselves in regular ma.s.ses, each individual substance a.s.suming a peculiar form or arrangement; and this is what is called crystallisation.

EMILY.

Crystallisation, therefore, is simply the reunion of the particles of a solid body that has been dissolved in a fluid.

MRS. B.

That is a very good definition of it. But I must not forget to observe, that _heat_ and _water_ may unite their solvent powers; and, in this case, crystallisation may be hastened by cooling, as well as by evaporating the liquid.

CAROLINE.

But if the body dissolved is of a volatile nature, will it not evaporate with the fluid?

MRS. B.

A crystallised body held in solution only by water is scarcely ever so volatile as the fluid itself, and care must be taken to manage the heat so that it may be sufficient to evaporate the water only.

I should not omit also to mention that bodies, in crystallising from their watery solution, always retain a small portion of water, which remains confined in the crystal in a solid form, and does not reappear unless the body loses its crystalline state. This is called the _water of crystallisation_. But you must observe, that whilst a body may be separated from its solution in water or caloric simply by cooling or by evaporation, an acid can be taken from a metal with which it is combined only by stronger affinities, which produce a decomposition.

EMILY.

Are the perfect metals susceptible of being dissolved and converted into compound salts by acids?

MRS. B.

Gold is acted upon by only one acid, the _oxygenated muriatic_, a very remarkable acid, which, when in its most concentrated state, dissolves gold or any other metal, by burning them rapidly.

Gold can, it is true, be dissolved likewise by a mixture of two acids, commonly called _aqua regia_; but this mixed solvent derives that property from containing the peculiar acid which I have just mentioned.