An Approach to Bromine Production and Storage in a High School Laboratory

This study documents a three-year-long project to produce and safely store elemental bromine in a high school laboratory. In the first attempts chlorine displacement by generating chlorine gas with trichloroisocyanuric acid was used to synthesize the bromine. These attempts were observed to be difficult to control, and produced an impure, low yield. To improve the process, a new method of oxidation using hydrogen peroxide was adopted. This new reaction was significantly easier to control, more optimized and resulted in a visibly larger yield. The first attempts were stored in plastic-capped glass bottles. However, this method would not contain the liquid bromine for a long period of time. Following research, a new method using custom-made hermetically sealed glass ampules was adopted for the more optimized reaction. The project shows optimization of both a chemical reaction and a safe storage method.