video Make Hydrogen Gas - Clean Burning, Inexpensive, Lighter than Air!
This video demonstrates a purely chemical process to produce large quantities of hydrogen gas from common, inexpensive chemicals. Hydrogen is a highly esteemed alternative fuel candidate because its combustion with atmospheric oxygen results in only clean water vapor, rather than carbon compounds as is the case with most other fuels. It is less dense than air, which means that it can be used to lift objects into the sky.
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2Al(s) + 6HCl(aq) --> 2AlCl3(aq) + 3H2(g)
Al + HCl --> ?
The products would have to be listed as fractional values, since there are not enough atoms given to allow you to form the complete molecules. Instead, the reactants are multiplied individually until they make a whole number of products, with no unreacted chemicals left over:
2Al + 6HCl --> 2AlCl3 + 3H2
This gives you a molar ratio that can be used to determine exactly how much aluminum or hydrochloric acid to react with a given amount of the other to have none wasted in the end. The equation tells you nothing about the quantity or concentration of chemicals that might be used to preform this reaction, it only gives a ratio, and shows all the chemicals involved.
If you wanted to do the math you could determine exactly how much HCl was in the 300 mL, and then from the equation calculate exactly how much aluminum would be needed to use it all, but I find it much easier to simply add the aluminum until it no longer reacts. Even if you did do the calculations, you could not add all the aluminum at once or it would react far too violently to be controlled, resulting in boiling acid spraying everywhere.
Is your acid the same concentration as what I show in the video?
Anyways, great 'ible.. as always!