Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

how does sodioum sulfanate react w/lead and vinegar

Hi hi-me-lol!,

sodioum sulfanate

I'm justing wondering if you mean "sodium sulfonate" or "sodium sulfate".
It will help me to understand your reaction, thank you.

Yeah I think i just spelt it wrong it smelt lke rotten eggs.yuck!!!

I'm not 100% on my chemestry. But I'll take an educated guess at it.

If you meant "sulfonate" then I think you misspelled "sulfonate", you should double check. I assumed you wanted to know about "sodium sulfonate".

I suggest researching "sulfonates" and "sodium sulfonate" to get a better idea of what the chemical (chemical family) is used for. I did that and got a short sentence on a website (way to little to be of any use and besides I summarize it here anyway). From what I find, Sodium Sulfonate is a chemical that helps the formation of a Base. I would then guess that this helps in the lead detection process somehow via a standard Base/Acid reaction.

From basic chemistry a Base (for example a hydroxide compound like Sodium Hydroxide: NaOH) will react with an Acid (for example like Hydrochloric Acid: HCl) to produce a Salt (in this case NaCl) and Water (H20).

I hope that helps. I'm sorry I cannot be more use to you.

Maybe another expert will see this and have more to add.

If you meant "Sodium Sulfate" then disregard my post please.

You might also look at the "Descriptive Chemistry" part of this Wikipedia page:

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

Sodium sulfonate

Thanks David but i still need to know, how does vinegar extract the lead from the soil?

Hi,
Lead and many other metals are more soluble in acidic solutions (e.g. vinegar) than in neutral solutions. For example,
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1204742
"As expected, solubility of added Pb, Zn, and Cu increased with a decrease in pH. "