1/9/2018 Anhydrous - Wikipedia

Anhydrous
A substance is anhydrous if it contains no water, for example, salts lacking their water of crystallization.[1] The way of
achieving the anhydrous form differs from one substance to another.

Contents
Solvents
Gases
See also
References

Solvents
In many cases, the presence of water can prevent a reaction from happening, or it can cause undesirable products to form.
To prevent this, anhydrous solvents must be used when performing certain reactions. Examples of reactions requiring the
use of anhydrous solvents are the Grignard reaction and the Wurtz reaction.

Solvents are commonly rendered anhydrous by boiling them in the presence of a hygroscopic substance; metallic sodium
is one of the most common metals used. Other methods include the addition of molecular sieves or alkali bases such as
potassium hydroxide or barium oxide. Column solvent purification devices (generally referred to as Grubb's columns)
recently became available, reducing the hazards (water reactive substances, heat) from the classical dehydrating
methods.[2][3]

Gases
Several substances that exist as gases at standard conditions of temperature and pressure are commonly used as
concentrated aqueous solutions. To clarify that it is the gaseous form that is being referred to, the term anhydrous is
prefixed to the name of the substance:

gaseous ammonia is generally referred to as anhydrous ammonia to distinguish it from household ammonia, which is
an ammonium hydroxide aqueous solution
gaseous hydrogen chloride is generally referred to as anhydrous to distinguish it from the more commonly used 37%
w/w solution in water

See also
Air-free technique

References
1. Daintith, edited by John (2008). A dictionary of chemistry (6th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 37.
ISBN 9780199204632.

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2. Guidelines for solvent purification at UC Davis (http://fire.ucdavis.edu/main/ucdfdinfobull22.htm) Archived (https://web.

archive.org/web/20060904103225/http://fire.ucdavis.edu/main/ucdfdinfobull22.htm) September 4, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine.
3. "Drying Solvents" (http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Reference/Lab_Techniques/Distillation/Drying_Solvents). UCDavis
Chemwiki. Retrieved 8 April 2014.

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