Volatile alkalies

Plants containing copper alloys in either the feed or condensate system should have the pH of the FW limited to 8.5 to 9.2. If the feed system is completely ferrous, the pH should be limited to 9.2 to 9.5. For plants utilizing the FW for spray attemperation or desuperheating, the pH should be controlled with volatile alkalis only. 

NOTE NVAT = Non-volatile alkali treatment, AVT = all-volatile treatment, ND = not detectable, NR = not recommended. 

Bismuth dissolves in nitric acid and in aqua regia both solutions are precipitated by pure water in the form of a white powder. When the regulus of cobalt is dissolved in these menstrua, it cannot be precipitated from them except by the alkalies fixed alkali precipitates it in the form of a powder which, after being washed, remains dark and black whereas when one precipitates it with volatile alkali, especially if it has been dissolved by aqua regia, it acquires a very red color, which changes to blue, if one exposes it to the fire up to the point of redness (27). 

Robert Boyle stated in 1661, in his Sceptical Chymist, drat sal ammoniac is composed of muriatic (hydrochloric) acid and the volatile alkali (ammonia) and told how to separate the urinous and common salts (27). In 1716 Geoffroy the Younger demonstrated the composition of sal ammoniac and prepared it by sublimation (28, 29). In the same year, the Jesuit missionary Father Sicard described its preparation at Dam ire or Damayer, one mile from die City of El Mansura in the Nile Delta. In twenty-five large laboratories and several smaller ones, it was sublimed in glass vessels from die soot of die burned dung of camels and cows, to which, he said, had been added salt and urine. Lemere, the French consul at Cairo, described die process in 1719 for the Academy of Sciences in Paris, but made no mention of salt or urine (29, 30, 31). 

I call a neutral salt every salt formed by the union of whatever acid, whether vegetable or mineral, with a fixed or a volatile alkali, an ab-sorbant earth, a metallic substance, or an oil. ... 

In this view common sulfur, alum, and the vitriols are products of that universal acid trickling down through the earth to form various bodies in the many matrices or wombs to be found there. In a sense, common sulfur has the same compositional structure as the neutral salts, viz., an acid joined to an oily body that gives it solid form. This pattern survives in Rouelles classic definition of neutral salt in 1744, when he said I call a neutral salt every salt formed by the union of whatever acid, whether vegetable or mineral, with a fixed or a volatile alkali, an absorbant earth, a metallic substance, or an oil. ... 

Mineral alkali Calcareous earth Volatile alkali... 

The term kali with the al prefix referred to the half-vitrified ashes, and hence the salts obtained from the ashes of plants were called- alkaline salts as well as nitrum. The term sal alchali for the ashes of sea-plants appears in the writings of the Latin Geber about the thirteenth century and the same term was also employed for the ashes of land-plants. It is known that the former furnishes a large proportion of sodium carbonate, the latter potassium carbonate. Later on, in order to distinguish these salts from ammonium carbonate, they were termed fixed alkalies, and ammonium carbonate was called volatile alkali. 

This salt was discovered by J. R. Glauber 1 in 1659 he prepared it by the action of nitric acid on volatile alkali—ammonium carbonate—and called it nitrum jlammans. Ammonium nitrate is an artificial product, its occurrence in nature is quite exceptional. Ammonium nitrate, sulphate, and carbonate occur in small quantities in the atm. from which they are carried by rain and snow to the surface waters of the earth. A. Bobierre 2 measured the amount, month by month, in the air of Nantes R. A. Smith determined the amount in the air of towns, etc., in Great Britain C. Ochsenius, in the air of Paris and A. Levy, and F. Fischer,... 

Ammomia.—A full description of this volatile alkali is given in Yol. I, page 177, et eeqmtur. 

Bergman explains why he prefers the term air acid or aerial acid to the then usual name—fixed air. In the first place, because this is only one of several kinds of air which occur fixed, and in the second place, because it is at the same time a true acid and a constant constituent of the atmosphere. Fixed air, he says, is a true acid, because it possesses a distinctly acid taste it reddens litmus ( turnsol ) it attacks caustic fixed alkalies, rendering them mild a smaller quantity of this acid than of the stronger acids saturates these alkalies and renders them crystallizable and less soluble it makes the volatile alkali (ammonia) more fixed, less odorous and penetrating and causes it to crystallize when it just saturates quicklime, it deprives it of its solubility and acrimony and causes... 

In 1773 it occurred to Priestley to apply the method he had used to obtain his marine acid air to see whether an alkaline air might be obtained from substances containing volatile alkali. He procured some volatile spirit of sal ammoniac (that is, ammonia water), placed it in a thin phial and heated it with a candle. A great quantity of vapor was discharged, which, collected over mercury, continued in the form of a transparent and permanent air, not at all condensed by cold. Sal volatile (that is, ammonium carbonate) and other salts obtained by the distillation of sal volatile with fixed alkalies, were tried but found to yield much fixed air also, so that he eventually used the mixture then customary for preparing the volatile spirit of sal ammoniac, viz., one part of sal ammoniac with three parts of slaked lime, which furnished him a large and easily controlled supply of pure alkaline air. ... 

Volatile Alkali Regulus of Copper Nitrous Acid... 

Ammoniac Sulphate of Ammoniac 6 Volatile Alkali Secret ammoniacal Salt of Glauber... 

Redistillation does not gready reduce the impurity level of volatile materials such as magnesium. Volatile alkali metals can be separated from calcium by passing the vapors over refractory oxides such as Ti02, Zr02, or Ci 03 to form the nonvolatile Na and I O (14). Purification techniques include reactive distillation (15), growth of crystals from the melt (16), and combined crystal growth and distillation techniques (17). 

Water-Based Inks. Approximately 50% of all flexographic inks use water as their primary solvent and diluent. They contain vehicles based on either acrylic emulsions, or hydrosols or an alkali-soluble rosin ester having a high acid number such as partially esterified fiimurated rosin and shellac. Carboxylated acrylic polymers, usually containing some styrene, have largely replaced natural resins because they provide better abrasion and water resistance. Ammonia or other volatile amines are used to solubilize these carboxylated resins and form resin salts. The volatile alkali evaporates from the ink film, rendering the printed matter water resistant. 

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