Question

62. What is the action of heat on the following?

(a) ammonium hydroxide

Answer 1

Ammonium hydroxide:

• Ammonium hydroxide is a weak base that partially ionizes in an aqueous solution to produce hydroxide and ammonium ions and furnishes less concentration of hydroxide ions.
• The ionization of ammonium hydroxide can be represented as:
• $\underset{\mathrm{Ammonium}\mathrm{hydroxide}}{{\mathrm{NH}}_4\mathrm{OH}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)}\rightleftharpoons \underset{\mathrm{Ammonium}\mathrm{ion}}{{\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Hydroxide}\mathrm{ion}}{{\mathrm{OH}}^{-}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)}$

Action of heat:

• When ammonium hydroxide is slightly heated, it quickly decomposes into ammonia gas (NH₃) and water (H₂O).
• The chemical reaction of decomposition of ammonium hydroxide can be represented as:

$\underset{\mathrm{Ammonium}\mathrm{hydroxide}}{{\mathrm{NH}}_4\mathrm{OH}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)}\stackrel{∆}{\to }\underset{\mathrm{Ammonia}}{{\mathrm{NH}}_3\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Water}}{{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\left(\mathrm{l}\right)}$