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DJ,
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for--thanks sooo
much!
Chris
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 10:41
AM
Subject: Re: potassium and sodium
thiocyanate
Hi Chis,
Sodium and Potassium salts are in essential
interchangeable, a bit depending on what your intended use is. It's the same
as with Potassium and sodium hydroxide: It's the anion that's what you're
using the stuff for (i.e. hydroxide, or thiocyanate, the kation is pot or
sod).
Chemically, it's KSCN or NaSCN
However, do keep in mind you
need different weigths of the same chemical.
You will need the same number
of molecules for you reaction, but since potassium has a higher atomic weight
than sodium, there's a difference in moleculair weigth between PSCN and
NaSCN:
PSCN: 97.181 gr/mol (potassium thiocyanate)
NaSC: 81.072 gr/mol
(sodium thiocyanate)
(mol doesn't stand for molecule, but for a unit, it's
defined as the numer of molecules that are present in 12 grams of carbon, but
just forget about that ;-) )
basically: if you need 1 gram of
PSCN, you will need 0.834 grams of NaSCN to have the same strength. (since P
is 'heavier' than Na, you need less of it, to have the same amount of
thiocyanate ions)
The other way around: for 1 gram of NaSCN, you will need
1.1987 grams of PSCN (again, because, Na is 'less heavy' than P, you need more
NaSCN in order to have the same amount of thiocyanate ions)
(the reason
i wirte 'heavier' in quotes, is that, chemically speaking, this is the wrong
way of stating things. The wright way would be: has a higher
density..)
Okay. I'm drifting away towards my old profession
(teaching at the chemical faculty of Utrecht University), here's the short
answer:
Yes, they are interchangeable.
Use the follow correction
to change between them:
1 gram pot-thiocyanate equals 0.834 gram
sod-thiocyanate
1 gram sod-thiocyanate equals 1.1987 gram
pot-thiocyanate....
(sorry for you 'weird' americans with your
non-metric system, but the same correction factors apply to ounces, pounds and
stuf as well :-) )
hope this is enough (or maybe too much)
information for you!
kind regards,
deejay
(dirk-jan, but
that's mostly unpronounceble by non-dutch speakers.. Spanish folks call me
Juan, Italians refer to me as Julio...Again, probably too much information
;-) )
2009/9/26 Christina Z. Anderson <zphoto@montana.net>
Dear All,
Away from the list for a month or so just to
wrap my head around the new semester, a new Director of the school, a new
faculty hire (all GREAT things), and writing writing writing...I just don't
know how some of you keep up on UTube, web surfing, twitter, Facebook,
MySpace, lists, forums, etc. etc.
Anyway, I actually have had time to
clean out my chemistry stockpile and was wondering if chemists on this list
could tell me if sodium and potassium thiocyanate are essentially
interchangeable?
Potassium and sodium
hydroxide?
Chris
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Christina Z. Anderson
http://christinaZanderson.com/
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