Arsine is a gas with a peculiar garlic-like odor, and is intensely poisonous. A single bubble of pure gas has been known to prove fatal. It is an unstable compound, decomposing into its elements when heated to a moderate temperature. It is combustible, burning with a pale bluish-white flame to form arsenic trioxide and water when air is in excess:
2AsH3 + 6O = As2O3 + 3H2O.
When the supply of air is deficient water and metallic arsenic are formed:
2AsH3 + 3O = 3H2O + 2As.
These reactions make the detection of even minute quantities of arsenic a very easy problem.
Fig. 72
Marsh's test for arsenic. The method devised by Marsh for detecting arsenic is most frequently used, the apparatus being shown in Fig. 72. Hydrogen is generated in the flask A by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on zinc, is dried by passing over calcium chloride in the tube B, and after passing through the hard-glass tube C is ignited at the jet D. If a substance containing arsenic is now introduced into the generator A, the arsenic is converted into arsine by the action of the nascent hydrogen, and passes to the jet along with the hydrogen. If the tube C is strongly heated at some point near the middle, the arsine is decomposed while passing this point and the arsenic is deposited just beyond the heated point in the form of a shining, brownish-black mirror. If the tube is not heated, the arsine burns along with the hydrogen at the jet. Under these conditions a small porcelain dish crowded down into the flame is blackened by a spot of metallic arsenic, for the arsine is decomposed by the heat of the flame, and the arsenic, cooled below its kindling temperature by the cold porcelain, deposits upon it as a black spot. Antimony conducts itself in the same way as arsenic, but the antimony deposit is more sooty in appearance. The two can also be distinguished by the fact that sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) dissolves the arsenic deposit, but not that formed by antimony.
Oxides of arsenic. Arsenic forms two oxides, As2O3 and As2O5, corresponding to those of phosphorus. Of these arsenious oxide, or arsenic trioxide (As2O3), is much better known, and is the substance usually called white arsenic, or merely arsenic. It is found as a mineral, but is usually obtained as a by-product in burning pyrite in the sulphuric-acid industry. The pyrite has a small amount of arsenopyrite in it, and when this is burned arsenious oxide is formed as a vapor together with sulphur dioxide:
2FeAsS + 10O = Fe2O3 + As2O3 + 2SO2.