Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bobby Isosceles]

I have a hunk of silver ore from Nova Scotia. There is a hell of a lot of silver in it and it's quite heavy.There are also other elements in it, most of them iron based because of their red color (this redness has increased over time with exposure to air).

Knowing that silver is a catalyst for hydrogen peroxide, I decided to pour some standard 3% hydrogen peroxide on the ore, in the hope that the silver would cause it to spontaneously decay into water and oxygen gas and the bubbles would clean the tarnish off the silver.

What ended up happening was I saw a real-time darkening to an almost brown of the red areas, as if there were real-time rusting occurring on the ore. This is probably because the liberated oxygen is reacting with the ferrous compounds. The only thing interesting about this is that the process was accompanied by an extremely sharp, extremely acrid burning smell. Which makes sense, sort of -- burning and rusting are both oxidation processes. Still, I wasn't expecting rust to smell like burning. Moreover, neither the ore nor the peroxide were warm in any way.

Can someone with a little more chemistry knowledge elucidate me as to what the hell is going on? I'd imagine there's a healthy mix of ferrous ores and maybe some sort of calcium carbonate substrate where the ore was found.

[Bobby Isosceles]

In retrospect, I think the burning smell was ozone. I remember it from computer power supplies go boom.

[arkabee]

i don't know man, but i recently read that pouring hydrogen peroxide in your ears will kill cold and flu bugs.

[sjlimmer]

Well, I'd need more information to be sure, but there are a few possibilities.

Tarnished silver is silver sulfide, and silver ores from Canada are often found in the presence of other sulfide minerals.  It is possible that the peroxide oxidized sulfide to sulfur, which might explain the acrid smell.

Of course, as you said, any ferrous compounds would likely be oxidized to ferric as well, which could be the darkening you saw.

Send me a sample and I'll do a more detailed analysis for you.....

[Bobby Isosceles]

Well, I'd need more information to be sure, but there are a few possibilities.

Tarnished silver is silver sulfide, and silver ores from Canada are often found in the presence of other sulfide minerals.  It is possible that the peroxide oxidized sulfide to sulfur, which might explain the acrid smell.

Of course, as you said, any ferrous compounds would likely be oxidized to ferric as well, which could be the darkening you saw.

Send me a sample and I'll do a more detailed analysis for you.....

I'm almost certain the ore is majority ferrous, as it's steadily been 'rusting' over the years. Watching real-time oxidization is cool. What was perplexing me was the smell, but I'm fairly sure it's that ozone smell you get after serious ionization.

[wombat]

Bobby, you know how to have a good time.

[acoxcae]

So, I've been considering asking this for a long time, and this thread just seals it:

Bobby, what in the hell do you actually DO?  Like, for a job?  Because as far as I'm concerned, you must be paid to search the internet for the most random nuggets of gold/weirdness/offensiveness ever.

Not that I have any problem at all with this occupation/avocation, in fact, I think it's downright amazing that you're able to provide us with all this material for discussion, I'm just curious to know if there's more to Eddie Ellipsoid than meets the web-board.

edit: What a proper query for Post # 100.

[Bobby Isosceles]

So, I've been considering asking this for a long time, and this thread just seals it:

Bobby, what in the hell do you actually DO?  Like, for a job?  Because as far as I'm concerned, you must be paid to search the internet for the most random nuggets of gold/weirdness/offensiveness ever.

Not that I have any problem at all with this occupation/avocation, in fact, I think it's downright amazing that you're able to provide us with all this material for discussion, I'm just curious to know if there's more to Eddie Ellipsoid than meets the web-board.

edit: What a proper query for Post # 100.

I work as an Enterprise Architect. Basically what this means is I make really pretty UML diagrams of how various systems and software are put together, and then watch people screw up the links on the diagrams, and then screw up the implementation of the system, and screw up the budgeting, and then I get called in to come fix the mess that would have been avoided in the first place. Which means I also spend a lot of time listening to people attacking each other over conference calls while remaining silent, since contributing is cathartic but ultimately useless. My work ethic measures the quality of work by output rather than input, which means I'll work a four to six hour day and produce more output than most people put in a twelve hour day. This is what we call working smarter, not harder, and it actually works.

I leverage this time by reading Wikipedia or watching Good Eats, getting scientific ideas and then trying them late at night when nobody can bother me. Since I became a homeowner most of my mad science experiments have veered away from the fire/exploding toilets end of the spectrum, since I really do care about my property now that I'm paying for it. So, sorry to ruin the image you have of me setting various things ablaze by throwing a block of sodium into my bathtub or whatever, but that was back when I was 21 and still renting, and things have changed now.

In addition, I have long since reached the conclusion that ncurses-based IRC via an SSH session in a terminal window looks like work from a distance. It is from this massive collaboration of equally bored people that I am able to garner the massive amount of links and wackiness you see here. I'm terribly sorry to ruin the image you have of me obsessive clicking on every link I see in order to find nuggets to put RIGHT HERE, but the fact is that I've outsourced most of my wackiness to the fine morons at #memepool, #sackheads and #yourmom on three separate IRC servers.

[acoxcae]

Ah, IRC - the 20th-century portal of wackiness carries over into the 21st century.

I too have noticed how basically any time you have a terminal window open, people assume you're hard at work, because UNIX must be work by default.  This is an advantageous opinion for me, since I spend a lot of time in UNIX, mostly goofing off.

Ok, question answered, thank you for your participation.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Ah, IRC - the 20th-century portal of wackiness carries over into the 21st century.

I too have noticed how basically any time you have a terminal window open, people assume you're hard at work, because UNIX must be work by default.  This is an advantageous opinion for me, since I spend a lot of time in UNIX, mostly goofing off.

Ok, question answered, thank you for your participation.

So to sum up, during the work week I'm nothing but business, but expect lots of fun with rust on Ferrous Bueller's Day Off.

[Golfhaus]

Ferrous Bueller's Day Off.

:shock:

Oh wow. I believe you have become to me what the SubGenii call a "short-duration personal saviour" for that little gem. My hat is off to you.