Sulphuric acid vanadium pentoxide

Benzoquinone ( quinone ) is obtained as the end product of the oxidation of aniline by acid dichromate solution. Industrially, the crude product is reduced with sulphur dioxide to hydroquinone, and the latter is oxidised either with dichromate mixture or in very dilute sulphuric acid solution with sodium chlorate in the presence of a little vanadium pentoxide as catalyst. For the preparation in the laboratory, it is best to oxidise the inexpensive hydroquinone with chromic acid or with sodium chlorate in the presence of vanadium pent-oxide. Naphthalene may be converted into 1 4-naphthoquinone by oxidation with chromic acid. 

Vanadyl Dibromide, VOBr2, is obtained by passing bromine vapour or, preferably, a mixture of sulphur bromide, SaBra, and bromine over a mixture of vanadium pentoxide and sulphur at a red heat the product is heated in vacuo at 240° C., whereupon the vanadyl dibromide is obtained as a yellow powder.8 An alternative method of preparation consists in heating vanadium oxytribromide, VOBr3, to 180° C.9 Vanadyl dibromide is no doubt present in the blue solution which results when hypovanadic oxide, VOa, is dissolved in hydrobromic acid. 

V0.V205 is produced as a dark blue, crystalline powder when either vanadium pentoxide or ammonium metavanadate is heated with excess of powdered arsenic, or when ammonium metavanadate is reduced with sulphur dioxide at a red heat. It dissolves in nitric acid to a blue solution.8... 

Detection.—Apart from naturally occurring ores of vanadium, vanadium steels, and ferrovanadium, the commonest compounds of vanadium are those which contain the element in the pentavalent state, viz. the pentoxide and the various vanadates. The analytical reactions usually employed are, therefore, those which apply to vanadates. Most vanadium ores can be prepared for the application of these reactions by digesting with mineral acids or by alkaline fusion with the addition of an oxidising agent. When the silica content is high, preliminary treatment with hydrofluoric acid is recommended. Vanadium steels and bronzes, and ferrovanadium, are decomposed by the methods used for other steels the drillings are, for instance, dissolved in sulphuric acid and any insoluble carbides then taken up in nitric acid, or they are filtered off and submitted to an alkaline fusion. Compounds of lower valency are readily converted into vanadates by oxidation with bromine water, sodium peroxide, or potassium permanganate. 

Other volumetric processes which have been w orked out include the use of potassium ferrocyanide,8 potassium ferricyanide,10 titanous chloride,11 and stannous chloride.12 According to Rosenheim and Yang,13 vanadium pentoxide is best determined in solution by addition of excess of caustic soda and back titration with sulphuric acid at 100° C., using a-naphthophthalein as indicator. 

Sulphuric acid (98%) 400 000 tonnes Sulphur-burning process, followed by catalytic oxidation of S0-> (vanadium pentoxide catalyst). 

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