Phenolphthalein bubbling

[Matt_Coffs]

Yesterday I made up some phenolphthalein indicator as per B Dungey's The Laboratory i.e. 2g phenolphthalein in 600ml ethanol made up to 1L with distilled water. I noticed that it was bubbling ever so slightly so I left it loosly covered over night, not wanting to seal the bottle with a gas being produced. Today it's still slightly bubbling. There's no visible solid on the bottom. Any thoughts?

[lfn]

what concentration of ethanol did you use?

[Laverne]

My recipe is 5g phenolphthalein to 500 mls ethanol and 500mls of water. Stir. I hope this helps.

[Merilyn1]

Any chance there was some residue in the container you used?

[bigmack]

If you mix ethanol and water it goes cloudy looking .......lots of tiny bubbles are generated and float to the top . ( I don't know what they are ...perhaps a learned member can enlighten ) ....it also produces a slight heat ( exothermic reaction perhaps )

But it is normally a fairly quick event and after 10 minutes it's all over Red rover .....so not sure why it's still happening next day . So maybe it might have something so do with what Merilyn was talking about .

[sunray18]

oh no! If you watch sci fi thrillers - you should be very very very scared!