Making potassium iodide from elemental iodine and potassium hydroxide
Scientific
name: Potassium hydroxide and potassium iodide form the iodine
YouTube
Make Potassium iodide from Iodine.
by myst32YT
Iodide iodine reacting with the KOH solution
by phim MY
Safety
Wear lab gloves and eye protection.
Always follow general safety
recommendations. Please note that conducting chemistry
experiments you must comply with the relevant legal procedures in
your country.
Step-by-step instruction
- Pour some water into a flask and dissolve some potassium hydroxide in it.
- Put iodine crystals into the flask and heat it with a burner. All iodine should dissolve and react with potassium hydroxide. If the solution becomes brown there is an excess of iodine. In this case just add more potassium hydroxide.
- Cool the flask down. Potassium iodate precipitates in the cold solution.
- Filter potassium iodate.
- Boil a little bit of the filtered solution and repeat the precipitating of potassium iodate.
Scientific background
Iodine reacts with potassium hydroxide forming potassium iodide (KI) and potassium iodate (KIO3). This is the disproportionation reaction.
Because potassium iodate is much less soluble in water than potassium iodide it is possible to separate these two substances using the precipitation of potassium iodate from the solution.