Why do we store silver chloride in dark coloured bottles?
3 answers
On exposure to sunlight, silver chloride disintegrates into silver and chlorine.
It really needs to be in dark glass, kept in a dark place (cabinet).
As an interesting story, my first year of teach quant I told the students there was no way of keeping that AgCl from turning purple and since exposure to ANY light made it change to Ag and caused low results for the gravimetric determination of Ag that the exposure should be kept to a minimum. After a day or two I saw, after doing this experiment my self for years and years, my first WHITE AgCl ( absolutely no purple). The students had taken me at my word and covered the filters, the pptn vessels and any other glassware used with any kind of opaque material they could find. No light got in, no decomposition took place, and pure white AgCl resulted.
10 answers