Am I making copper carbonate?

Question

I heat baking soda over the stove trying to make sodium carbonate. I can't see anything happen but I get different results in electrolysis. What I get is insoluble greenish crystals on the anode. Unheated baking soda gives me a blue solution.

Am I making sodium carbonate by heating baking soda and are the green crystals copper carbonate?

Answer 1

It does sound as if you have introduced carbonate ions into the electrolyte, so that as soon as the copper anode dissolves, green copper carbonate forms on its surface. This will tend to stop any further electrolysis, by the way!

The blue solution sounds like copper hydrogencarbonate.