What is the product of sodium carbonate + sulfuric acid?

10/11/06 Edit: I am incorrect. I'm leaving it, though, so that the next (correct) answer makes more sense. :)

I hope this is a homework question.

The product is hydrogen chloride gas; nothing to be messed with. It can cause severe burns and death.

No, no, and no.

You cannot get hydrochloric acid from this reaction! The original chemicals contained no chlorine. You most likely mistook sodium carbonate for sodium chloride.

Yeah this sounds like homework, but the carbonates role in buffers is interesting enough ill post anyway.

Carbonate is (CO3)2- it is basic. It can abstract a proton from the strong acid to form bicarbonate... (HCO3)1-

Depending on what you are doing you can continure the reaction. For example, bicarbonate is an important buffer in the blood that helps regulate pH. More acid would donate another proton to the bicarb, making H2CO3. Is this ex, you are likely done, though in the body and even in the beaker the H2CO3 becomes CO2 and H20. In the lab you keep bicarb around to react with spilled acid, and it bubbles like mad as it neutralizes the acid.

So under acidic conditions, like when a diabetic isn't eating correctly and is making acidic ketone bodies, the body gets rid of the extra acid through the bicarb system to make CO2 and H20, and the CO2 gets breathed out, often with an increased rate of breathing. The pH in the body does still drop a little, but it is minimized by the consumption of the bicarb. Again, the normal pH of the blood in the body already has much of the carbonate protonated into the bicarb form, but it's a real life ex of why this kind of problem is interesting at all.

The bicarb can also go back to the carbonate in alkaline conditions.

Na2CO3 + H2SO4 => Na2SO4 + H2CO3
Sodium carbonate + sulfuric acid => Sodium sulfate + bicarbonate

Not exactly. While you are mostly trying to repeat what I mentioned already (but in a clearer form than my paragraphs), your answer is incorrect partially.

Bicarbonate is not H2CO3.

Bicarbonate is (HCO3)1-... coupled in formulas with a cation such as sodium (as it is here) or potassium.

Your answer shows carbonic acid as the product, but the incorrect intermediate name for the product shown.

:: Edited ::

If the Na2SO4 solid or aqueous?

What about Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate + Sulfuric Acid?

Another question, since I'm at it, if I mix H2SO4 with metals like Zinc, Copper and Iron, will the metal sulfate be solid or aqueous?

Thank you!

You can use bicarbonate to clean up acid spills directly... it doesn't need to be in solution.

However, there's no reason why you cannot mix aqueous solutions... in most teaching labs, full strength acids are oftentimes not used. Much of the time you are using a diluted form (water added).

For ex, a common lab is to determine the zinc coating on a piece of galvanized metal. You take a gal. nail or metal square and place it in a beaker of HCl (which is concentrated HCl gas in water)... the acid rapidly reacts with the zinc coating, throwing off vigorous bubbles. When the bubbles slow, the zinc is gone. You can weigh the metal before and after to determine the coating weight of zinc. In this case, the solution would have zinc chloride in the aqueous phase.

Anyway, many acids used in the lab are not in anhydrous forms, even when concentrated.

Sodium sulfate, water and carbon dioxide

How Do I Prepare I Normal Hydrochloric acid Solution of 35 % Gr To Standardise it with Na2co3.

Na2CO3 solid + H2SO4 =Na2SO4 aqueous + CO2 gas + H2O liquid[/B]

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