Adams' Catalyst - Preparation

Preparation

Adams' catalyst is prepared from chloroplatinic acid H2PtCl6 or ammonium chloroplatinate, (NH4)2PtCl6, by fusion with sodium nitrate. The first published preparation was reported by V. Voorhees and Roger Adams. The procedure involves first preparing a platinum nitrate which is then heated to expel nitrogen oxides.

H2PtCl6 + 6 NaNO3 → Pt(NO3)4 + 6 NaCl (aq) + 2 HNO3
Pt(NO3)4 → PtO2 + 4 NO2 + O2

The resulting brown cake is washed with water to free it from nitrates. The catalyst can either be used as is or dried and stored in a desiccator for later use. Platinum can be recovered from spent catalyst by conversion to ammonium chloroplatinate using aqua regia followed by ammonia.

Read more about this topic:  Adams' Catalyst

Famous quotes containing the word preparation:

    It’s sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child’s nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast.
    Joyce Maynard (20th century)

    Living each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at something—and much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, “Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,” our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.
    Hortense Odlum (1892–?)

    With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavours and the tinglings of a merited shame.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)