Talk:Oleum

Expanded and corrected.

The only big mistakes were the description of equilibrium, which is inapplicable due to the pure acid being solid, and the statement that sulfur trioxide polymerises on contact with water. I'm unsure of the carbon mass hardening after treatment of glucose with acid, so I'll leave it in. Any comments on this? Ambix 17:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This article about oleum says much about the danger of handling it in, say, a railcar. An incident at the General Chemical plant in 1993 was just the kind of accident that is spoken of in this article; this incident occurred in Richmond, California, USA. Richard8081 21:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Minor Cleanup

Cleaned up some of the extraneous/conversational language throughout the article. No real content changes, just made it more readable. 97.82.247.200 00:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Percent Oleum Calculation

I do not understand how ten percent Oleum would mean H₂SO₄.0.1SO₃. Shouldn't it be x gm of free SO₃ for every 100 gm of Oleum?

This Correction is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aksanoble (talk • contribs) 03:42, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Poor lead.

Too much on the formula and composition in the lead, and nothing on uses, origina of name, etc. Led is supposed to be big picture, not details. LeProf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.244.80 (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Use in organic synthesis

I was a bit startled to see that the organic synthesis part of the article mentions the role of oleum in double aromatic nitration, but not in triple nitration. As a matter of fact, oleum, combined with nitric acid, is (among other applications) essential in the third step of production of TNT (Urbanski T (1964). Chemistry and Technology of Explosives 1. Pergamon Press. pp. 389–91. ISBN 0-08-010238-7.) as mentionned in the Wikipedia page of TNT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitrotoluene#Preparation).

Would this be worth an addition to the article ?

Regards,

Antoine Hoekman

PS : sorry for possible mistakes, English is not my mother tongue

Why is it fuming

The article does not mention why the acid is fuming. Can somebody explain? 83.84.34.28 (talk) 18:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Bad information?

In the Reaction section, the claim that oleum + sugar [sic] produces "pure carbon" demands an authoritative reference. As any good chemist should be able to tell you, sulfuric acid is an oxidizer which seems to contradict the claim that it reduces (the opposite of oxidation) sucrose to carbon. I made a half-hearted attempt to find an authoritative reference, but hit the good-old ACS paywall. Shakhashiri has/had a 5 (?) volume work (and his 1985 work (vol. 2?) *might* provide a good reference. (It's available from AMZN for ~$15; disclaimer: I'm not familiar with his work, so can't say if it contains suitable a bibliography) It is very wrong to claim that "hydrogen elements of water are drawn out"! This is an obvious red flag that the editor has a poor (or nonexistent) grasp of the subject. Oleum dehydrates carbohydrates such as sugar (sucrose). (But I doubt the product is (reduced) carbon. Can't say for sure...some online sources say it is "ash", some "(polycondensed) pyrans and furans" some say CO2.) Note: this is a common - but dangerous - chemical demonstration. Sulfuric acid is a nasty chemical to work with (and SO2/SO3 are also bad). I recommend the mention of the Pharoh's Snake reaction be eliminated (sugar + sulf. acid).174.130.71.156 (talk) 20:34, 17 October 2022 (UTC)