The bubbles are more likely to be just carbon dioxide, because the sodium hydroxide / sodium aluminate solution is basic and pulls it from the air; when you add it to the acid, it will be released again. The precipitate is just aluminium hydroxide and the nickel hydroxide precipitating, aluminium hydroxide is amphoteric and redissolves again if the base is in excess. If the pH seems off it's just because the solution isn't being stirred.
I think what is happening is that, when the aluminium hydroxide is added to the Hcl it is temporarily turned into aluminium chloride which actually reacts with water itself to again create aluminium hydroxide, water and HCL gas (hence the spluttering). Aluminium hydroxide isn’t soluble in regular water but can dissolve in acidic and basic solutions. The litmus still showed acidic but due to the neutralisation reaction between the Hydroxide and acid the overall concentration of the acid in the solution may be lower and closer to neutral hence why the aluminium hydroxide wasn’t instantly getting redissolved, I assume if you stirred it for a while some of the aluminium hydroxide would end up redissolving again. I’m not sure if this is what is happening, and obviously I didn’t take into account all then metal chlorides in the HCL solution, but it could hold some truth.
You might be right-definitely the point about the aluminum hydroxide not redissolving, since the litmus paper was kind of orange so pH was probably around 4-5, acidic but maybe not acidic enough to dissolve Al(oh)3. The point about HCl gas also sounds plausible (and might have even been catalyzed by the other metal ions in solution) since more small gas bubbles kept evolving out from the bottom of the beaker for some time (as if the HCl gas had been trapped underneath/within the precipitated Al(OH)3). I would assume that any HCl gas produced would quickly dissolve in water though, which is why I'm tempted to assume another gas might have also been produced, since the bubbles lingered for some time. Might have been H2 (through some sort of redox reaction between maybe Fe2+ and H+ or something), might not have been especially since the bubbles didn't immediately evolve out of the solution and H2 would since it's pretty light. Thanks for your insight!
@@FoolishChemist yeah it is definitely possible that another gas like H2 was made in the reaction. What did it smell like if you could smell the gas at all? HCL gas and chlorine smell obviously very strong but hydrogen doesn’t smell at all, so if there wasn’t an obvious odour from the gas itself then it was most likely hydrogen.
@@TheFireGoose yeah I don’t remember there being a smell, so the bubbling was probably hydrogen. The match test wasn’t super definitive but I think that might have been just because only a small amount was evolving out of solution.
Wouldn't say aluminum is anything toxic. Nickel is scary tho
Next time you should consider using the larger beaker as the receptacle and the small ones for the additions. More space for reaction containment.
The bubbles are more likely to be just carbon dioxide, because the sodium hydroxide / sodium aluminate solution is basic and pulls it from the air; when you add it to the acid, it will be released again. The precipitate is just aluminium hydroxide and the nickel hydroxide precipitating, aluminium hydroxide is amphoteric and redissolves again if the base is in excess. If the pH seems off it's just because the solution isn't being stirred.
I think what is happening is that, when the aluminium hydroxide is added to the Hcl it is temporarily turned into aluminium chloride which actually reacts with water itself to again create aluminium hydroxide, water and HCL gas (hence the spluttering). Aluminium hydroxide isn’t soluble in regular water but can dissolve in acidic and basic solutions. The litmus still showed acidic but due to the neutralisation reaction between the Hydroxide and acid the overall concentration of the acid in the solution may be lower and closer to neutral hence why the aluminium hydroxide wasn’t instantly getting redissolved, I assume if you stirred it for a while some of the aluminium hydroxide would end up redissolving again. I’m not sure if this is what is happening, and obviously I didn’t take into account all then metal chlorides in the HCL solution, but it could hold some truth.
You might be right-definitely the point about the aluminum hydroxide not redissolving, since the litmus paper was kind of orange so pH was probably around 4-5, acidic but maybe not acidic enough to dissolve Al(oh)3. The point about HCl gas also sounds plausible (and might have even been catalyzed by the other metal ions in solution) since more small gas bubbles kept evolving out from the bottom of the beaker for some time (as if the HCl gas had been trapped underneath/within the precipitated Al(OH)3). I would assume that any HCl gas produced would quickly dissolve in water though, which is why I'm tempted to assume another gas might have also been produced, since the bubbles lingered for some time. Might have been H2 (through some sort of redox reaction between maybe Fe2+ and H+ or something), might not have been especially since the bubbles didn't immediately evolve out of the solution and H2 would since it's pretty light. Thanks for your insight!
@@FoolishChemist yeah it is definitely possible that another gas like H2 was made in the reaction. What did it smell like if you could smell the gas at all? HCL gas and chlorine smell obviously very strong but hydrogen doesn’t smell at all, so if there wasn’t an obvious odour from the gas itself then it was most likely hydrogen.
@@TheFireGoose yeah I don’t remember there being a smell, so the bubbling was probably hydrogen. The match test wasn’t super definitive but I think that might have been just because only a small amount was evolving out of solution.