[Corvettaholic]

I need to seperate oxygen from this Si₂O₃, which is a rock I think. The melting point of Silicon is 1800, and boiling point is 3200 if that helps. How do I do this? Is there something I could react it with that give me what I want? The goal is gaseous oxygen. Si₂O₃ is stable, so its not going to want to react, I think this goes against the idea of entropy?

[Mitch]

Cut yourself and drop it into hydrogen peroxide, you'll make gaseous O2. The more blood you drop the more gaseous oxygen you'll make.

[Corvettaholic]

Hmmm... that WOULD be a good idea if I found a way to force my body to mass produce blood. Next project idea  

The reason I wanted to break it off of silicon, is cause that stuff is in dirt, and I want to play with dirt using heat as my weapon.

[AWK]

First of all, Si₂O₃ doesn't exist. so what you can to do?

[Scratch-]

Its SiO₂ not Si₂O₃. You can alwayse make glass if your idea doesn't work.

[Corvettaholic]

Heh, woops. One too many of each. So it isn't likely I'm going to seperate that oxygen atom, is it?

[Scratch-]

You will use more energy breaking it apart than your likley to get in your reaction using the O₂.

[Corvettaholic]

Well scrap that idea then. Well I wonder how hard it would be to seperate the aluminum and nitrates that plants like in dirt. Probably not worth my time trying to find a fuel out of dirt, cause it won't be cheap.

[hmx9123]

Aluminum sulfate is sold in plant stores as a fertilizer.  Just add it to water and you've got Al⁺³ ions.

[Corvettaholic]

Let me think about how this works:

Al₂(SO₄) + H₂O => ?

Are the Al ions going to be floating around by themselves, or will they be bonded to each other free of the sulfate? Its been forever since I've done chemical equations so I don't remember how to do it. Will there be free electrons in the result?

[AWK]

Al₂(SO₄)₃ even in solid state is ionic compound.
dissolution in water only breaks a crystal lattice. Additionally Al³⁺ cations
hydrates to form Al(H₂O)₆³⁺ and all ions are surrounded by excess of water molecules.
Commercially avaiable aluminium sulfate may already contain 5, 8 or 10 water molecules.

So writing down a real equation for dissolution is not as trivial as:
Al₂(SO₄)₃ = 2Al³⁺ + 3SO₄^2-

eg.
Al₂(SO₄)₃^.5H₂O is in fact Al(H₂O)₂Al(H₂O)₃(SO₄)₃
and equation of dissolution in water is
Al(H₂O)₂Al(H₂O)₃(SO₄)₃ + 7H₂O = 2Al(H₂O)₆³⁺ + 3SO₄^2-