I recently added a potassium hydroxide, $\ce{KOH}$, pellet to a small droplet of hydrogen peroxide (30 %), $\ce{H2O2}$. You could clearly see the potassium hydroxide dissolving in the droplet when instantaneously the solutions began to fizz strongly (boil and/or release oxygen gas, I'm not sure) and release a lot of heat.
I'm not sure what happened, but I've got a few ideas of what might have happened:
- There is some kind of reaction between the $\ce{KOH}$ and $\ce{H2O2}$.
- The $\ce{KOH}$ released a lot of energy when dissociating into the aqueous solution and then boiled the water, maybe reaching the temperature of 150.2 °C in which it also triggered the decomposition of $\ce{H2O2}$ into water and oxygen gas.
On Wikipedia I read:
The rate of decomposition increases with rising temperature, concentration and pH.
So when $\ce{KOH}$ is dissolved, the solution has a high pH and this might trigger the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide
I did notice after a pH test that the plastic lid on which I had condensed some of the evaporated water had a very high pH, so this would most likely contain some dissolved potassium hydroxide.
In case a reaction happened, what could that specific reaction be?
No comments:
Post a Comment