Solubility Measurements of Crystalline Cu2O in Aqueous Solution as a Function of Temperature and pH

Abstract

The equilibrium solubility of crystalline cuprous oxide, cuprite, was measured in liquid water and steam using two flow-through reactors and a conventional batch autoclave. These measurements were carried out from 20 to 400 °C. Different batches of pretreated cuprite were thoroughly characterized prior to and following each set of experiments. Metallic copper beads were added to the inlet end of the reactors and to the solid charge in the autoclave to preserve the Cu(I) oxidation state, although one series of experiments produced some results which were only compatible with CuO(cr) as the solubility limiting phase. Comparison of the solubility data for Cu2O(cr) in aqueous solution with those from the only available high-temperature dataset (Var’yash, Geochem. Int. 26:80–90, 1989) showed that in near-neutral solutions the new data are lower by about four orders of magnitude at 350 °C. Moreover, the dominant species in solution at temperatures ≥100 °C were found to be only Cu+ and \(\mathrm{Cu(OH)}_{2}^{-}\) with Cu(OH)0 occurring over a narrow pH range at ≤75 °C rather than the reverse trend reported previously. Solubility equations were developed as a function of temperature and pH, based on these new results, which showed increased solubility with temperature in acidic and basic solutions. The solubility of Cu2O(cr) in steam decreased slightly with temperature and as expected increased with increasing pressure to supercritical conditions where limited, compatible data were available in the literature. The solubility at subcritical conditions was on the order of one to several parts per billion, ppb. A simple empirical fit was derived for the solubility in steam as a function of temperature and pressure.