Copper mirror - Kupferspiegel

[shinevangie]

omg. this is so simple & helpful. i'm doing a project on copper mirrors so this was really REALLY helpful. thank you!

[vrtzlbrmft]

Hi there, thanx for that mostly interesseting experience. I 'd like to create a text/word saying "delicatessen" on a shop vitrine. Would that concept be adapdable to the creation of a mirror, on a flat and plane piece of glass.That'd replace in a way the test tube by a"box" about 100cm x 40cm with a depth of not even a centimeter. Is the heating needed to be very hot ?

[Chaoschemiker]

@vrtzlbrmft I guess it would be way more easy to use some metallic-colour spray to do this job. Copper, especially as thin mirror is senstive to the moist airborne oxygen. Even inside of a testtube it takes only several days to get a patina and soon the whole mirror becomes unshiny greenish. I prevented this by washing/drying the mirror with some acetone/ethanol, flushing the test-tube with argon and closing the test-tube by melting the glass. But this should be useless for your purpose. Sorry.

[hkparker]

Is this anhydrous hydrazine or hydrazine hydrate? It shouldn't matter, should it?  I tried this without success with hydrazine hydrate, but I think I over heated it.

[Chaoschemiker]

@hkparker I used the 96% monohydrate, but it shouldn't matter. It's a bit tricky to find the right concentrations, I tried it a few times, sometimes, the mixture boils up, and the mirror forms on the half of the testtube, sometimes, if you add too much Hydrazine, you'll get simply a fluffy precipitate of copper(I) or Copper.

I guess it should even work with (dissolved) hydrazine sulfate.

[hkparker]

@Chaoschemiker Thanks for the help! ill play around with it.

[TheChemlife]

can you use a different copper salt instead of copper sulphate?

[Chaoschemiker]

@TheChemlife every usual, good soluble copper(II)salt should work for this.

[TheChemlife]

@Chaoschemiker does it work with other metals?

[Chaoschemiker]

@TheChemlife for more precious metals you'll need less strong reducing agents. (Mercury won't form a mirror like this i guess) But every else Metal with a negative standard electrode potential (less than Hydrogen which equals zero) may be oxidized immediatly by the aqueous environment, especially due to the low thickness of the possibly formed mirror layer. Even the Cu-mirror is not durable, because the oxygen and moisture in the air oxidize the copper. Mine started to became misty within 30min

[Lostfury54]

Can i do this in a bottle,and instead of direct heat use hot water?

Will it build gases inside the bottle?

I will appreciate an answer please.

Ps: what type of quantities will i need for the copperising of the bottle?

[Chaoschemiker]

@Lostfury54 I guess every kind of glass should be fine. I didn't tried it yet, but a boiling water bath seems to do it's job as well.

Yes, it forms equimolar quantities of nitrogen to reduced copper(II) ions, so your vessel needs to be open or it will build up pressure.

The quantities you need are depending on the size of your bottle ;)

Dont forget to clean your bottle and seal it from air (Otherwise the mirror will corrode about time)

Remember that N2H4 is toxic and carcinogenic.

[mewrox99]

Very original video. Nice :)

[hkparker]

excellent! Ive always been interested in making mirrors out of metal besides silver, I will definatly give this a try... although I need to make hydrazine first....

[viclorwow]

is there any compound that can be substituted instead of hydrazine? 

[Chaoschemiker]

@viclorwow you may know about the fehlings reagent, detecting reducing groups. It's a 1:1 mixture of an alkanline K-Na tartrate (Fehling I) and an CuSO4-solution (Fehling II) (exactly concentrations and recipes can be found in the web).

If you add a strong reducing agent to this solution, you may also gain a copper mirror by heating. (In my school-lab a class mate surprisingly made one out of this fehlings reagent and simply glucose. No one else (not even himself) was able to reproduce it.)

[olympicfan2]

super. wo bekommt man hydrazin?

[Peterditaa]

das war hydrazinhydrat und nicht reines hydrazin, oder?

[Chaoschemiker]

@Peterditaa genau, habe mir das mit der Bezeichnung als Monohydrat insofern gespart, da die reduzierende Wirkung beim Hydrazin selbst liegt.

[log1x07]

suber ;-)