VanDyke Precipitate

Mac Cosgrove-Davies (mcosgrovedavies@worldbank.org)
Fri, 12 Sep 1997 18:19:09 +0000 (GMT)

Richard,

The additional tartaric acid did the trick (i.e. dissolved the
precipitate). However, it didn't happen right away. In fact,
when I added my last little bit of tartaric acid (mixed in a
bit of distilled water) to the VanDyke solution, I was
disappointed at the lack of results. I put it back in the
chemical cupboard with the expectation that I needed more
tartaric. To my delight, when I checked the solution two days
later, the precipitate was gone. Perhaps this is like boiling
water, it only works when you are not looking.

Thanks for the advice.

Mac Cosgrove-Davies