Preparation and Chemical Properties
Beryllium oxide can be prepared by calcining (roasting) beryllium carbonate, dehydrating beryllium hydroxide or igniting the metal:
- BeCO3→ BeO + CO2
- Be(OH)2 → BeO + H2O
- 2 Be + O2 → 2 BeO
Igniting beryllium in air gives a mixture of BeO and the nitride Be3N2. Unlike oxides formed by the other group 2 (alkaline earth metals), beryllium oxide is amphoteric rather than basic.
Beryllium oxide formed at high temperatures (>800 °C) is inert, but dissolves easily in hot aqueous ammonium bifluoride (NH4HF2) or a hot solution of concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and ammonium sulfate ((NH4)2SO4).
Read more about this topic: Beryllium Oxide
Famous quotes containing the words preparation and, preparation, chemical and/or properties:
“It’s sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child’s nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavours and the tinglings of a merited shame.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“We do not want actions, but men; not a chemical drop of water, but rain; the spirit that sheds and showers actions, countless, endless actions.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)