[Jordan.Hill]

Hello, i am an undergraduate working in a research lab that does ototoxicity studies on zebrafish. A compound that we found via an AI may be ototoxic (damaging to hair cells) but I am struggling to find its solubility. The compound is Barium Sulfate (BaSO4). I have looked on the sigma aldrich page as well as many other pages and everything points to it being insoluble in almost everything except sulfuric acid. We can't use sulfuric acid because of the damage that that would cause and would skew the data. Does anyone have any tips? i have tried dissolving a small amount, 3.5mg in 1.5 mL of DMSO heated to +50C, but so far no luck. My next is to try a smaller concentration stock. something like 5 mM so like 1.75 mg in 1.5 mL of DMSO. Any help using lab compounds to dissolve Barium Sulfate would be much appreciated!

[Babcock_Hall]

Could you test barium ion separately from sulfate ion?  By that I mean testing a more soluble salt form of barium and a more soluble salt form of sulfate.

[Jordan.Hill]

Could you test barium ion separately from sulfate ion?  By that I mean testing a more soluble salt form of barium and a more soluble salt form of sulfate.

Unfortunately no. Barium sulfate is a compound that is used to treat specific illnesses and so that is why we have to test it combined.

[Borek]

I am afraid you ask for impossible. You want to dissolve insoluble salt without changing it into anything else - well, it is insoluble, so it won't dissolve.

Ksp for BaSO₄ is more or less 10^-10, so the saturated water solution is around 10^-5 M.