Barium is a chemical element of the periodic table that reacts with water and acid solutions. It forms barium hydroxide, the formula of which is Ba (OH) 2 (the traditional name is “caustic barite”). This is a complex inorganic substance. Outwardly, it looks like a white powder, consisting of transparent crystals. This substance is highly soluble in water - and the higher the temperature of the water, the better the solubility. “Barite water” (or saturated barium hydroxide solution) is called water in which Ba (OH) 2 is dissolved. Barium oxide hydrate freely reacts with carbon dioxide, and therefore its aqueous solution (or “barite water”) is used in analytical chemistry as a reagent for CO2.
In addition, barite water can serve as a reagent for sulfate and carbonate ions. With good solubility in water, barium hydroxide is completely insoluble in alcohol. This feature is widely used in various sectors of the economy. But before using this hydroxide, you need to find out how it is obtained from available reagents. So, barium hydroxide is obtained by dissolving an oxide in hot water or by heating barium sulfide in a stream of superheated steam. This is achieved exclusively in laboratory conditions, since in everyday life this process is not only impossible, but also dangerous to human health.
Barium hydroxide is used to remove sulfate ions from animal and vegetable oils, industrial solutions, and is also used to produce rubidium and cesium hydroxides as components of lubricants.
Barium hydroxide has various properties, including alkaline. It is used in the oil industry, producing additives for oils. Moreover, such hydroxide perfectly manifests itself as an additive to oils, so now a number of similar products are produced on its basis. Non-ferrous metallurgy and the chemical industry use barium hydroxide in their production. Barium oxide hydrate is widely used as a reagent for SO42- and CO32-, when cleaning animal fats and vegetable oils, as a component of lubricants, and when SO42- is removed from industrial solutions.
Obtaining Ba salts and hydroxides Cs, Rb from their sulfates or carbonates is not complete without the use of a reagent such as barium hydroxide. This feature has also become fundamental in determining the potential use of this hydroxide in industry. Surprisingly, barium is used to create artificial comets: barium pairs that are released from the spacecraft have the property of being easily ionized by sunlight and turning into bright plasma clouds.
In the fifty-ninth year of the last millennium, when the Soviet interplanetary automatic station Luna-1 made its flight, the first artificial comet was created. Physicists in America and Germany back in the seventies, exploring the electromagnetic fields of the Earth, emitted barium powder in the amount of fifteen kilograms directly over Colombia. As a result of this, a plasma cloud formed, which had an elongated shape located along magnetic fields, which made it possible to clarify their location. Twenty years later, barium particles and barium hydrosulfate converted into jets were used to study the aurora.
As can be seen from all of the above, barium hydroxide is a rather important component in modern industry. Without its unique properties, it will be quite difficult to carry out this or that work. It is also impossible not to admit that the reagents created using this hydroxide are actively used in almost all sectors of the national economy!