Potassium Permanganate - Safety and Handling

Safety and Handling

As an oxidizer that generates the dark brown product MnO2, potassium permanganate rapidly stains virtually any organic material such as skin, paper, and clothing. Solid KMnO4 is a strong oxidizer and thus should be kept separated from oxidizable substances. Reaction with concentrated sulfuric acid produces the highly explosive manganese(VII) oxide (Mn2O7). When solid KMnO4 is mixed with pure glycerol or other simple alcohols it will result in a violent combustion reaction.

3 C3H5(OH)3 + 14 KMnO4 → 14 MnO2 + 14 KOH + 9 CO2 + 5 H2O

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