[afonjealis]

Hi
I need a liquid chemical which reacts with NaOH and preferably make a colorful chemical compound but I need this chemical to be strictly non-reactive and non-dissolvable to NaNO3.

The reason for this question is I have grown crystals of the combination of 2 salts and I need to study them under microscope, but I need a way to recognize the NaOH in the matrix of NaNO3.

Your help is so appreciated. This is related to my MSC research

Thanks

[Trave11er]

Hello,

I am not sure, but, maybe, this can help you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimony_pentafluoride. The idea is that this compound tends to form complex anions with halogens (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoroantimonic_acid) and "in theory" should react well with OH- ions of NaOH as well to form Na[Sb(OH)F5]. On the other hand it would react poorly with NO3- ions from NaNO3, because the latter are bulky and have their minus charge delocalised more compared to OH- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrate).