a way to seperate zinc and copper using a chemical reaction?

Question

any ideas or where i could begin to look?

Answer 1

I had to dig back into my chem lab notebook for this =P

First of all, lets state the facts. Copper is a group II cation, whereas Zinc is a group III cation. There are 5 groups in all for cation categorization. If they are to be seperated, the must be done from group I - group V. It cannot be done backwards.

Note: Equilibrium

With the mixture of Zinc and Copper in solution, add NaOH in excess, until pH > 10 (so that Copper will react completely, and so that equilibrium will push Zinc to form completely into a complex ion). You will get a precipitate of Cu(OH)2, and zinc will be in solution as the complex ion Zn(OH)4 2-.

Centrifuge, and seperate supernatant to another test tube. Add HCl until pH=2 (acidic). Add NaOH again until pH = 8-10. This will allow the Zinc to precipitate as Zn(OH)2. There you have it. You seperated two elements as oxidated compounds, simply by manipulating pH. =) hope this helps

I can get into the kinetics, but only if you want to know =)
also note that chemical concentrations are important! they must be certain dilutions for this experiment to actually work. Your chemistry lab will most likely have them prepared for you, but if they dont, do your number crunching, and find the EXACT concentrations needed. You can do this by finding the mole ratios of one another according to their chemical reactions.

Answer 2

??? What exactly do you need?

If you have metal fillings add HCl. Cu will not dissolve because the E0 of copper is positive and thus it cannot displace hydrogen, whereas Zn has negative E0 and reacts:

Zn+2HCl->ZnCl2+H2

ZnCl2 is soluble so you filter and remove the Cu.

Answer 3

Electrochemical reactions / electrolytic cell