• Question: when you add magnesium to a acid wat do u think would happen anything bad

    Asked by narty to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hey narty!

      It’s a LONG time since I did chemistry, so my brain is a bit dusty in that department. I think the formula for the reaction would be something like:

      Mg (magnesium) + HCl (hydrochloric acid… of course ther are many acids, like sulphuric acid, H2SO4, or nitric acid HNO3)
      –> MgCl2 (magnesium chloride) + H2 (hydrogen).

      I don’t think anything bad would happen, no. The hydrogen part of the acid would be released as hydrogen gas. The chloride part would bond with the magnesium to form magnesium chloride.

      If I’d used a different acid, like sulphuric acid, then the magnesium would bond to sulphate (hydrogen gas would be released as before), to form magnesium sulphate.

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Zara is right if I remember my chemistry correctly – you’d definitely get some sort of ‘metal salt’ forming.

      The reaction might be quite spectacular though!

      There is metal (sodium, Na) in normal table salt!

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Magnesium is very reactive but not really in an aggressive way. The elements in the first column of the periodic table (alkali metals) are the ones that react very violently with water and acid (sodium, potassium, etc). Acid makes magnesium more likely to dissolve in water. If you look at magnesium in the periodic table, it is in the second column. These are called alkaline earth elements because the molecules that they can form with oxygen all behave very similarly. They are strong and don’t melt easily in fire. The alkaline earth elements heavier than magnesium form very specific flame colours in fire. Calcium makes the flame turn orange. Barium makes it turn green. These experiments are fun things you might get to do in chemistry.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi narty,

      Here is a video of the reaction:

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi narty

      It’s been a while for me too, but what the others wrote really makes sense to me. Magnesium holding two electrons in the outer shell (hence the second column in the periodic table) will give them off in solution and obtain two positive charges (Mg2+). Hydrochloric acid (HCl) breaks down into H+ and Cl-. Because of their single negative charge two chlorine ions will bond with each Mg2+. 2H+ are released, and evidently they get two electrons from somewhere, but I am not quite sure from where.

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