in this lesson we're going to explore

some interesting and unusual reactions

of group seven of the periodic table the

halogens let's start with a chlorine

reaction now that you've heard about the

reaction of hydrochloric acid with

sodium hydroxide but what if you were to

bubble diatomic chlorine gas in some

cold sodium hydroxide solution the

reaction is not the same as well as

sodium chloride salt and water we also

get sodium hypochlorite made up of a

normal sodium one plus cation and the

hypochlorite one minus anion seen here

this reaction is very popular in

industry because the resulting mixture

of the three products works perfectly as

a bleach and once it's been diluted to a

three to eight percent

aqueous solution that's exactly what it

sold us household bleach the cleaning

stain removal from fabrics and

sterilizing here's something you might

not have considered before different

halogens can react with each other

chlorine and iodine can react together

to form iodine monochloride here's the

thing though iodine monochloride is a

brown liquid and vapor which looks very

similar to diatomic bromine not only

that their molar masses are almost

identical so how could we tell whether

we have iodine monochloride or bromine

in our test tube we can drop in a strip

of tin metal with iodine monochloride

the more reactive chlorine forms the

liquid tin tetrachloride while the

displaced iodine atoms pair up to become

diatomic purple iodine vapor in contrast

with bromine the test tube will become

colorless as all the bromine reacts with

the tin to form the colourless liquid

tin bromide now a reaction involving

fluorine have you ever heard of

hydrofluoric acid you will probably

never have seen any in your labs because

it's so dangerous it cannot be stored in

glass bottles like other acids our

hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive that

it can attack

in dissolve glass he does this by

forcing the silicon dioxide components

of the glass which is usually chemically

inert to react forming silicon

tetrafluoride and water it is the only

acid capable of doing this here's a

challenge if you start with hydrogen gas

fluorine gas and silicon dioxide can you

write in balanced equations showing how

the process happens you will need two

different chemical reactions pause the

video and have a go then resume is the

answer the first reaction is this

because of the reactivity of fluorine

the reaction has to be carried out in

the dark and at low temperature

otherwise you is causing an explosion

and here's the second reaction

hydrofluoric acid can only be stored in

certain types of plastic which are

resistant to its corrosive power but we

can exploit this power to hydrofluoric

acid is used industrially to create

patterns on glass a technique called

itching finally you may know that iodine

can be used to test for the presence of

starch but what's the chemistry behind

this starch is a very large polymer of

sugar molecules a polysaccharide it is

how plants store their glucose before

they respire it to provide their energy

in an aqueous environment one of its

components amylose forms long repeating

chains which are coiled rather like a

tiny spring we can make an iodine based

reagent by dissolving diatomic iodine in

an aqueous solution of potassium iodide

this creates the negatively charged

triiodide iron now it just so happens

that these triiodide ions are the

perfect size to fit in the middle of the

starch spring so in they go and the

chemical interaction between the

triiodide and the starch causes the very

intense dark blue-black color you'll see

if you add a drop of iodine to a potato

or piece of bread we use this reaction

to detect fake banknotes by using

detector pens with an iodine containing

ink the paper used to print official

bank notes is starch free but most

common types of paper contain starch and

the

course you're not blue