Your lab partner performs a sodium fusion on an unknown compound. He examines th

Question

Your lab partner performs a sodium fusion on an unknown compound. He examines the acidified fusion stock solution for the presence of sulfur and nitrogen - both of these tests show negative results. Unfortunately, your lab partner is a bit clumsy today and drops the fusion stock solution. Now he turns to you for help and asks you to perform a new sodium fusion and test the fresh fusion stock solution for the presence of halogens. You want to be a good lab partner, but you really don't want to spend another half an hour in the lab, so you decide to just add the silver nitrate reagent without boiling the solution. Can you still expect reliable results?

Explanation / Answer

When an organic compound is heated strongly with sodium, halogens will be converted into inorganic sodium salts such as sodium halide and hence they are detected easily. Hence not boiling wont give reliable results.

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