Chemical Properties
When mixed with water, sodium metabisulfite releases sulfur dioxide (SO2), a pungent, unpleasant smelling gas that can also cause breathing difficulties in some people. For this reason, sodium metabisulfite has fallen from common use in recent times, with agents such as hydrogen peroxide becoming more popular for effective and odorless sterilization of equipment. Released sulfur dioxide however makes the water a strong reducing agent.
Sodium metabisulfite releases sulfur dioxide in contact with strong acids:
- Na2S2O5 + 2 HCl → 2 NaCl + H2O + 2 SO2
on heating to high temperature, it releases sulfur dioxide, leaving sodium oxide behind. (A similar reaction is seen with sodium sulphite.) :
- Na2S2O5 → Na2O + 2 SO2
Read more about this topic: Sodium Metabisulfite
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or properties:
“If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)