Barium hydroxide. What do we know about him?

Barium is a chemical element of the periodic table that reacts with water and acid solutions. It forms barium hydroxide, the formula of which is Ba (OH) 2 (the traditional name is "caustic barite"). This is a complex inorganic substance. Outwardly it looks like a white powder, consisting of transparent crystals. This substance is very soluble in water - and the higher the water temperature, the better the solubility. "Baryte water" (or a saturated solution of barium hydroxide) refers to water in which Ba (OH) 2 is dissolved. Barium oxide hydrate freely reacts with carbon dioxide, and therefore its aqueous solution (or "barite water") is used in analytical chemistry as a reagent for CO2.

In addition, barite water can serve as a reagent for sulfate and carbonate ions. With good solubility in water, barium hydroxide is completely insoluble in alcohol. This feature is widely used in various branches of the national economy. But before using this hydroxide, you need to find out how it is obtained from the available reagents. Thus, barium hydroxide is obtained by dissolving in oxide hot water or by heating barium sulphide in a stream of superheated steam. This is achieved exclusively in the laboratory, since in everyday life this process is not only impossible, but also dangerous for human health.

Barium hydroxide is used when removing sulfate ions from animal and vegetable oils, industrial solutions, and also used to produce rubidium and cesium hydroxides as lubricant components.

Barium hydroxide has various properties, including alkaline ones. It is used in the oil industry, making additives for oils. Moreover, such a hydroxide perfectly manifests itself as an additive to oils, so now on its basis produce a number of similar products. Non-ferrous metallurgy and the chemical industry use barium hydroxide in their industries. Widely used barium oxide hydrate as a reagent on SO42- and CO32-, in the purification of animal fats and vegetable oils, as a component of lubricant, when SO42- is removed from industrial solutions.

The preparation of Ba salts and hydroxides of Cs, Rb from their sulfates or carbonates is not without the use of a reagent such as barium hydroxide. This feature has also become fundamental in determining the potential use of this hydroxide in industry. Surprisingly, barium is used to create artificial comets: barium pairs that are released from the spacecraft have the ability to be easily ionized by the sun's rays and transformed into bright plasma clouds.

In the fifty-ninth year of the last millennium, when the Soviet interplanetary automatic station Luna-1 made its flight, the first artificial comet was created. The physicists of America and Germany, in the seventies, exploring the electromagnetic fields of the Earth, produced a barium powder release in the amount of fifteen kilograms directly over Colombia. As a result, a plasma cloud was formed, which had an elongated shape located along the magnetic fields, which made it possible to determine their location. Twenty years later, barium particles and barium hydrogen sulphate converted to jets were used in the study of the polar aurora.

As you can see from all of the above, barium hydroxide is a rather important component in modern industry. Without its unique properties, it will be difficult to carry out certain works. Also it can not be denied that the reagents created using this hydroxide are actively used in practically all branches of the national economy!