[Muonium]

Hi everyone!

I reacted Potassium metal with Deuterium oxide (heavy water) to yield a  basic solution of Potassium deuteroxide and added to it Cobalt(II) chloride to precipitate Cobalt(II) deuteroxide. It's been 2 days and my precipitate is still green. Why? Is it because it's Cobalt(III) or because of the D2O interactions?

Thanks a lot!

[chenbeier]

Probably the alpha-modification blue-green. The ß one is pink. cobat-III-hydroxide  is brown.

[Arkcon]

or because of the D2O interactions?

Do you have any reputable reference that deuterium has significantly different chemical properties?  Yes, it does react more slowly than H+, and yes, it does have some physical chemistry differences, I had heard of those.  But I suspect you may be reaching with this interaction.

Why are you performing this?  Just how enriched is your deuterated hydroxide?  What's your solvent, and how deuterated is it?

If the answers aren't "very" than you can't expect much effect.  If the answers are "not much at all" then you can't expect any effect.  So why do you expect an effect?

[Muonium]

Thank you Chenbeier!

I did this for fun and to experiment. My deuterium oxide is pure. I directly reacted Potassium with it, so my basic solution is all deuterated. My Cobalt (II) chloride solution is normal distilled water. The precipitate should be a Deuteroxide as it works for Copper, Calcium and others, and because there are no hydroxide ions in the solution. I read somewhere that it might be due to a change in coordination geometry from octahedral to tetrahedral.

Thanks!