Scribd
Upload
393 views3 pages

Cooling Mixtures

A cooling bath is a mixture used in laboratories to conduct low-temperature reactions or collect volatile liquids. Common mixtures include ice water, dry ice with acetone, and liquid nitrogen, which can achieve temperatures down to -196°C. The choice depends on availability, toxicity, and desired temperature.

Uploaded by

Sumanna Reddy
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
393 views3 pages

Cooling Mixtures

A cooling bath is a mixture used in laboratories to conduct low-temperature reactions or collect volatile liquids. Common mixtures include ice water, dry ice with acetone, and liquid nitrogen, which can achieve temperatures down to -196°C. The choice depends on availability, toxicity, and desired temperature.

Uploaded by

Sumanna Reddy
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Cooling bath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_bath

Cooling bath
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A cooling bath is a mixture used in a laboratory when low temperatures are needed, for example to conduct low-temperature chemical reactions (such as when kinetic control of the reaction is desired), to collect highly volatile liquids from distillation, or in cold traps. It usually consists of a solid that melts or sublimes at a low temperature, or a liquid that boils at a low temperature, mixed with some other substance that modulate the temperature of the bath or improve heat conduction.

Contents
1 Types 1.1 Ice 1.2 Dry ice 1.3 Liquid nitrogen 2 Advantages and disadvantages 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

A typical experimental setup for an aldol reaction. Both flasks are submerged in a dry ice/acetone cooling bath (78 C) the temperature of which is being monitored by a thermocouple (the wire on the left).

Types
The simplest and cheapest cooling bath is an ice/water mixture, which maintains a temperature of 0 C. For lower temperatures, three main types of cooling baths are typical: Common cooling bath mixtures Mixture T (C) 10 20 42 40 78 98 196

Ice
A slurry of ice and an inorganic salt such as sodium chloride or calcium chloride can provide temperatures down to about 40 C. The temperature depends on the amount and type of salt used, based on the freezing point depression effect.

CaCl2.6 H2O/ice 1:2.5 NaCl/ice 1:3 acetonitrile/CO2 CaCl2.6 H2O/ice 1:0.8 Acetone/CO2 Methanol/N2 Liquid N2

carbon tetrachloride/CO2 23

Dry ice
A slurry of dry ice and a suitable organic solvent, such as acetone, can provide temperatures down to about 100 C (with diethyl ether). Temperatures in the range of -12 C to -78 C can be conveniently generated with ethylene glycol / ethanol / dry ice mixtures.[1]

Liquid nitrogen
1 of 3

9/23/2011 9:31 AM

Cooling bath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_bath

Liquid nitrogen can provide temperatures down to about its boiling point of 196 C.

Advantages and disadvantages


Several factors influence the choice of the cooling bath composition. The first is availability dry ice and liquid nitrogen are comparatively inexpensive, but dry ice is often more easily stored. The toxicity and flammability of the composition is significant. For example, many of the solvents used with dry ice are flammable. This problem is mitigated because at the working temperatures, the vapor pressures of most of these solvents is non-hazardous.[2] In most cases, a relatively non-toxic solvent such as acetone or isopropyl alcohol will be preferred, rather than something more toxic like bromomethane. When the cooling bath is no longer needed, the waste solvents also need to be stored and disposed of. Liquid nitrogen is usually considered the best cooling bath refrigerant because it is non-toxic, is cheap, and leaves no residue. However, it suffers from the drawback of being cold enough to condense oxygen from the air into a liquid. The combination liquid oxygen and liquid organic solvents (oxygen with a boiling point of 182.95 C) is a potentially explosive mixture that must be avoided.[2]

See also
Pumpable ice technology Heating bath

References
1. ^ Lee, Do W.; Jensen, Craig M. (2000). "Dry-Ice Bath Based on Ethylene Glycol Mixtures" (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/issues/2000/May/abs629.html) . J. Chem. Ed. 77: 629. doi:10.1021/ed077p629 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fed077p629) . http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/issues /2000/May/abs629.html 2. ^ a b Alvin B. Kaufman and Edwin N. Kaufman. "Cold Traps" (http://web.archive.org/web/20080425071905/http: //chemistry.osu.edu/ehs/handbook/gases/coldtrap.htm) . Ohio State University. http://web.archive.org /web/20080425071905/http://chemistry.osu.edu/ehs/handbook/gases/coldtrap.htm.

Jonathan M. Percy, Christopher J. Moody, Laurence M. Harwood (1998). Experimental Organic Chemistry: standard and microscale. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0632048199. Wilfred Louis Florio Armarego, Christina Li Lin Chai (2003). Purification of Laboratory Chemicals (5th ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 978-0750675710.

External links
Carter Research Group. "Cooling Baths" (http://www.chemistry.oregonstate.edu/carter/Baths.html) . Oregon State University. http://www.chemistry.oregonstate.edu/carter/Baths.html. A.J. Meixner, et al.. "10.5.2 Different Freezing Mixtures" (http://www2.uni-siegen.de/~pci/versuche /english/v105-2.html) . University of Siegen. http://www2.uni-siegen.de/~pci/versuche/english /v105-2.html. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_bath" Categories: Laboratory techniques | Cryogenics | Cooling technology

2 of 3

9/23/2011 9:31 AM

Cooling bath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_bath

This page was last modified on 18 August 2011 at 08:17. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

3 of 3

9/23/2011 9:31 AM

You might also like