Lab Notes - Making Oleum - Successful - (April 21-2024)

These are my lab notes trying to make Oleum or Fuming Sulfuric Acid by amateur means.

Turns out it is possible to do it with just a ceramic hotplate, sulfuric acid, and sodium bisulfate. Along with standard laboratory glassware. But so far the yield is around 13%. I'm trying to optimize it.

The procedure is simply heat the sodium bisulfate on the ceramic hotplate and pyrolyze it until it becomes sodium pyrosulfate. Then let it cool and add in sulfuric acid. Distilling it again yields sulfur trioxide.

Previous methods require much higher temperatures to pyrolyze the sodium pyrosulfate directly.

Related videos:
Purification of Sulfuric Acid by Distillation Revisited:    • Purification of Sulfuric Acid by Dist...  
Lab notes - Making Oleum - Success (part 1): This Video
Lab notes - Making Oleum - 20% yield improvement (Part 2):    • Lab notes - Making Oleum - 20% yield ...  




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