I tried to make sodium acetate.
Ingredients:
- Store bought vinegar - 8% acetic acid, water, E150C (caramel)
- Baking soda - $\ce{NaHCO_3}$
Steps:
- I first emptied sacks of baking soda to a container
- I kept adding vinegar until the resulting fuming was mild
- I started heating the solution slowly, I kept adding more vinegar as long as I could see bubbly reaction
- I increased heat until all water evaporated. I was left with white-brown chunks of (presumably) sodium acetate and the impurities from vinegar
- I kept heating this until it melted into opaque black liquid
- I poured the hot molten stuff into ceramic bowl
This is my result:
I might upload better picture tomorrow, when there's more light available.
So, this does not really look as sodium acetate at all. It looks like a volcano. Clearly there's more volcano-ish experiments with vinegar than I thought.
How do I purify this? Is there even any sodium acetate? Could I burn (decompose) it or something?