The group I cations are those species which form chloride precipitates that are insoluble in

acid. The group includes Ag +, Pb+2, and Hg22+ (mercurous ion). These cations are precipitated from

any other cations that might be present in a sample by addition of 6M hydrochloric acid. Addition of

HCl forms a mixture of AgCl, PbCl 2, and Hg2Cl2 solids. At this point, the sample is centrifuged and the

precipitate of the Group I chlorides isolated (the centrifuge above the precipitate is saved for

further analysis).

Lead ion is then separated from silver and mercury by taking advantage of the fact that

PbCl2is much more soluble in hot water than in cold water (the solubilities of AgCl and Hg 2Cl2 do not

vary much with temperature). Distilled water is added to the Group I mixed precipitate and the

mixture is heated dissolve PbCl2. The hot mixture is then centrifuged quickly, and the centrifugate

containing lead ion is removed from the remaining silver/mercury precipitate. The presence of lead

ion is then confirmed by addition of chromate ion (CrO 4-2), which forms a characteristic yellow

precipitate with lead ion (PbCrO4).

The precipitate containing silver and mercurous ions is the treated with aqueous ammonia.

Silver ion is complexed by ammonia. Silver ion is complexed by ammonia; it will dissolve and is

removed through centrifugation. A black/gray residue in the centrifuge tube confirms the presence

of mercury.

The centrifugate from above, containing complexed silver ion, is then treated with acid,

which reprecipitates silver chloride. Alternatively, potassium iodide can be added, which

precipitates the silver ion as yellow silver iodide.

In this experiment (and those that yellow on the qualitative analysis of Groups II-V) a

known sample for only the particular group under study, as well as an unknown sample (containing

one or more cations from the specific group) will be analyzed. In real practice, a sample would
naturally not be restricted to the members of only one analysis group, but rather would be a

general mixture of all possible cations.