Flowers of Sulphur

Method 3 (from bromine and sulphur). (1). A 1-litre three necked flask Is charged with 27g. of flowers of sulphur and 550 ml. of... 

The effects of heat flow can be illustrated nicely by using sulphur as a demonstration material. A thin glass cell (as in Fig. 6.1, but without any thermocouples) is filled with melted flowers of sulphur. The cell is transferred to the glass plate of an overhead... 

An idea of the possibilities is given by the old high-school chemistry experiment with sulphur crystals ("flowers of sulphur"). A 10 ml beaker is warmed up on a hot plate and some sulphur is added to it. As soon as the sulphur has melted the beaker is removed from the heater and allowed to cool slowly on the bench. The sulphur will... 

Simple sublimation is a batch-wise process in which the solid material is vaporised and then diffuses towards a condenser under the action of a driving force attributable to difference in partial pressures at the vaporising and condensing surfaces. The vapour path between the vaporiser and the condenser should be as short as possible in order to reduce mass-transfer resistance. Simple sublimation has been used for centuries, often in very crude equipment, for the commercial production of ammonium chloride, iodine, and flowers of sulphur. 

The next two passages illustrate the difficulty and/or reluctance the chymists of that time had in confidently identifying bodies from different sources as being the same body. This is particularly hard to do in a system that emphasizes the reality of properties, for these properties had no measurability and are easily blended or gradually increased or decreased, and it is hard to say when the properties of two different samples are really alike and that the two bodies are identical. Flowers of sulphur and magistry of sulphur provide an illustration. 

When mineral sulfur is sublimed, the condensed sublimate is called flowers of sulphur, which in those days had medicinal uses. This operation is intended only to rarifie the Sulphur, that being rendered more open, it may work the better. Note again the mechanical explanation. 

Powder will do as much as double the quantity of Flowers of Sulphur for Diseases of the Breast, and it doth not heat so much. ... 

N. A. E. Millon found that a soln. of alkali chlorite gives a yellow precipitate of lead chlorite, Pb(C102)2, or of silver chlorite, AgC102, when treated respectively with lead or silver nitrate. On recrystallization from hot water, lead and silver chlorites are obtained in yellow plates. J. Schiel also made lead chlorite by treating a soln. of barium or calcium chlorite with lead nitrate an excess of the lead nitrate is to be avoided because of its solvent action. Fine sulphur yellow crystals can be obtained from a warm soln.—50°-60°—of the salt in calcium chlorite. The dry salt explodes at 126° according to N. A. E. Millon, at 100° according to J. Schiel. It explodes when triturated with flowers of sulphur or antimony sulphide. It behaves like silver chlorite with hydrogen sulphide and with sulphuric acid. 

Preparation. Put 3.5 g of sodium sulphite and 50 ml of water into a small conical flask. Weigh 2.5 g of flowers of sulphur and, after wetting the sulphur with ethanol (why ), transfer it into the flask with the sodium sulphite solution. Heat the mixture up to boiling. The end of the process is featured by a neutral reaction of the solution with litmus. Filter the hot solution and evaporate it on a water bath up to the beginning of crystallization. Filter off the crystals that precipitated after cooling in a Buchner funnel. Write... 

For the manufacture of blackpowder the sulphur used should be of highest purity, refined by distillation. Crude sulphur (which usually contains 2-5% of impurities) is distilled from retorts heated to a temperature of400°C. The receiver should be maintained at a temperature above 115°C (120-130°C), i.e. above the melting point of sulphur (114-115°C). Under these conditions the distillate condenses to a liquid which is then cast into sticks or blocks. This is the only form of sulphur suitable for the manufacture of blackpowder. If the receiver temperature is lower, the sulphur distilled from the retort condenses as flowers of sulphur which always contain a little S02) and even traces of H2S04 (the substance is easily oxidized due to its large surface area). Sulphur in this form is therefore slightly hygroscopic and acidic, and is unsuitable for the manufacture of blackpowder. 

Sulphur thus produced is almost pure. It is true that the sublimed sulphur in powder—that is, the flowers of sulphur—contains a small quantity of sulphurous acid, which for some purposes it is necessary to remove by washing with water, hut this is pretty nearly the only body it is oontaminatod with the roll sulphur is free from sulphurous acid. 

Applications of Sulphur.--Much sulphur is consumed in the manufacture of matches, being applied in the form of phosphorus sulphide as a constituent of the heads of common friction matches, whilst on the Continent the wooden splints have frequently been treated with sulphur to facilitate the passage of the flame from the bend to the remainder of the match. Large quantities of sulphur are also required for the production of gunpowder and fireworks for these purposes finely divided sulphur is necessary, but u flowers of sulphur is not suitable on account of its liability to contain tract s of sulphuric acid, due to atmospheric oxidation, which would render its use dangerous. 

Flowers of sulphur (see p. 12), when freshly prepared, commonly contains about. 80 per cent, of insoluble sulphur, but this percentage may vary considerably.7 However, if sulphur vapour is condensed on the surface of cold water or especially on the surface of a cold aqueous solution of a mineral acid such as sulphuric acid, the proportion of the insoluble amorphous modification in the deposit may be so high as to render it the main constituent,8... 

That under suitable conditions y-sulphur can retain its individuality for a considerable period is clearly demonstrated by the fact that insoluble sulphur has been found in a specimen of llowers of sulphur prepared more than fifty years previously. Indeed, the presence of insoluble sulphur serves as a trustworthy characteristic of genuine flowers of sulphur by which the fraudulent substitution of powdered sulphur may easily be detected. 

At 200° C. sulphur can undergo slow oxidation,3 manifested by a distinct phosphorescence 4 oxidation can also occur even at the ordinary temperature,3 especially with finely divided sulphur in a moist condition. Flowers of sulphur, when stirred with water, usually imparts a feeble acid reaction to the liquid. To this slow oxidation probably is to be attributed any beneficial effects resulting from the customary introduction of lumps of sulphur into dogs drinking troughs (cf. p. 12). 

Preparation.—Sulphur and chlorine interact slowly at the ordinary temperature but much more readily on warming. The customary procedure is to pass dried chlorine into fused sulphur or over dry flowers of sulphur until most of the sulphur has disappeared. The resulting monochloride contains considerable amounts of higher sulphur chlorides in solution, but if the mixture is heated for some time under a reflux condenser the pure monochloride can subsequently be distilled over. 

To the catalyst prepared as described on p. 61, from 25 gms. of aluminium powder, 45 gms. of mercuric chloride and 25 gms. (excess) of pure dry benzene, 10 gms. (4 atoms) of flowers of sulphur are added under good mechanical stirring, and the mixture heated on a water bath until hydrogen sulphide is no longer evolved. The product, on cooling, is decomposed by adding ice, filtered, and the residue repeatedly extracted with chloroform from which the thianthren is obtained on concentration. It is recrystallised from acetone. 

Materials mercury, Hg, 20 grams = 0.1 F.W. flowers of sulphur, 8 grams. 

The surface tension of water, like that of all liquids, diminishes with rise of temperature. A ready method of illustrating this consists in pouring water into a shallow, clean metal plate held horizontally until a thin layer is formed. The surface is now dusted over with flowers of sulphur, and heat applied locally to a point near the centre of the under surface of the plate by means of a fine gas jet. As soon as the heat reaches the water, the sulphur is rapidly pulled away towards the circumference of the plate in consequence of the reduction in the surface tension of the warmed central liquid.3... 

Palladium Subsulphide, Pd2S.—This sulphide has been prepared by heating to bright redness a mixture of paUadous sulphide (1 part) with ammonium chloride (6 parts), sodium hydroxide (12 parts), and flowers of sulphur (12 parts). The product is washed with cold water.1... 

Place a little of the cadmium salt mixed with an equal weight of sodium oxalate in a small ignition tube, and heat. A mirror of metallic cadmium with brown edges is produced. Allow to cool, add a little flowers of sulphur and heat again. The metallic mirror is gradually converted into the orange-coloured sulphide, which becomes yellow after cooling. Do not confuse this with the yellow sublimate of sulphur. 

Fulminating Powder. Powder separately 3 ports nitre, 2 parts dry see No. 2065) carbonato of potash, and 1 flowers of sulphur mix them together carefully. If 20... 

IIL Mix 40 parts of pulverized nitrate of strontium, 6 of pulverized chlorate of potassium, 13 of washed flowers of sulphur, and 2 of pulverized charcoal. 

V. Rub fine and mix 195 parts of nitrate of strontium, 45 of chlorate of potassium, 45 of washed flowers of sulphur, 7.5 of powdered charcoal, and 22.5 of stearine ... 

VII. One hundred and twenty parts of potassium nitrate, 30 of flowers of. sulphur, 45 of chlorate of potassium, 371 of anhydrous sodium carbonate, 2 of charcoal powder, 221 of stearine. 

Green Stars. Thirty parts of chlorate of barium, 10 of flowers of sulphur, and 1 of mastic. 

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