Lanthanum chloride is the inorganic compound with the formulaLaCl3. It is a common salt of lanthanum which is mainly used in research. It is a white solid that is highly soluble in water and alcohols.
Preparation
Anhydrous lanthanum(III) chloride can be produced by the ammonium chloride route.[3][4][5] In the first step, lanthanum oxide is heated with ammonium chloride to produce the ammonium salt of the pentachloride:
La2O3 + 10NH4Cl → 2(NH4)2LaCl5 + 6H2O + 6NH3
In the second step, the ammonium chloride salt is converted to the trichlorides by heating in a vacuum at 350-400 °C:
(NH4)2LaCl5 → LaCl3 + 2HCl + 2NH3
Uses
Lanthanum chloride is also used in biochemical research to block the activity of divalent cation channels, mainly calcium channels. Doped with cerium, it is used as a scintillator material.[6]
Also used in the field of geology as a very dilute solution, which when combined with the proper acids can help identify small >1% Strontium content in powdered rock samples.
^Brauer, G., ed. (1963). Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry (2nd ed.). New York: Academic Press.
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Meyer, G. (1989). "The Ammonium Chloride Route to Anhydrous Rare Earth Chlorides—The Example of Ycl 3". The Ammonium Chloride Route to Anhydrous Rare Earth Chlorides-The Example of YCl3. Inorganic Syntheses. Vol. 25. pp. 146–150. doi:10.1002/9780470132562.ch35. ISBN978-0-470-13256-2.
^Edelmann, F. T.; Poremba, P. (1997). Herrmann, W. A. (ed.). Synthetic Methods of Organometallic and Inorganic Chemistry. Vol. VI. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag. ISBN978-3-13-103021-4.
^Martin, T; Allier, C; Bernard, F (2007). "Lanthanum Chloride Scintillator for X-ray Detection". AIP Conference Proceedings. Vol. 879. pp. 1156–1159. doi:10.1063/1.2436269.