Agent_Smith,
Like I said, it won’t work. I’m trying to figure out where to begin clarifying, but I'm overwhelmed.
First off, let’s scrap this nonsense about HCl + HBr making HBr. Compare, if you will, the pKa’s of the two acids. Oh, you can’t find those numbers? Well, let your good friend Smiley_Boy help you out (the pKa for HBr can be surprisingly elusive when you’re first starting.) The pKa for HBr is around –8.6, and the pKa for HCl is near -7.4 (or so IUPAC would have us believe.) Notice something? Yes, the pKa of HBr is lower, meaning that in fact HBr is about 20 imes more acidic, and indicating that in a mixture the cation (Br
-) will generally stay ionic, and that HCl will generally be in far higher concentrations than HBr. To rephrase this, you're not going to get a lot of HBr this way.
Let’s also clear up the matter with ammonia fumes. I have some doubts about the way this experiment was performed, since both HCl and HBr form salts with ammonia. The fact that you got nothing certainly doesn’t indicate that HBr was produced. Rather, the fact that you got nothing indicates the test was performed in a manner that it was not intended.
Moving on, let’s straighten this business out with Osmium, and your quotation of him. Not
once in his message did he use the word 'gases', and 50/50 'at best' was what he suggested. He was being polite, but at the same time, he was trying to tell you this is a dead end. Osmium is a nice guy, but parroting him certainly isn’t exactly the stuff of science. Why 50/50? You tell me. Oh, you can’t? Well, neither can I; as far as I can tell, Osmium pulled this number out of thin air, in an effort to explain the reason why the best-possible-scenario with this procedure is still unacceptable.
Now, let’s get into the meaty part:
Another quantitative analysis shows that HCl is 62g/100ml soluble, so 33% HCl is only 1/2 the way to saturation. As such, there would be plenty of water to dissolve all the HCl produced as well. By these numbers, there should be NO gas at all, and that is certainly not the case.
Wow, this makes me nervous.
Okay, let’s go through this, step-by-step. Now what is that whole “%” all about? It’s the percentage of how much of the weight of the solution is made up by HCl. How do we calculate it? Well, let’s say that water weighs about 1 g/ml (certainly close enough for this demonstration.) That means that the solution weighs 162 grams (62 g HCl, plus 100 g H2O). Now, calculate:
(62 g HCl)/(162 g solution)*(100%) = 38.2%
Which, according to the Merck Index, is actually about as much HCl as water can hold under ambient conditions (BTW, if you haven’t picked up a copy of it, do so. It will save you a lot of grief and energy - and chemicals.) Incidentally, a saturated HBr solution is made up of 66% HBr.
I want to make sure you know I don’t mean this at all in a discouraging manner; though I think your understanding of theory could use some polishing, you’ve shown a great deal of promise in practical lab technique. The fact that you went out and actually took some carefully measured direct observations -- that's impressive. I really look forward to seeing your progression.
I hope this helps...