Fig. 4

At left are two photos of pairs of reaction mixtures. Each pair has newly purchased Rhodes steel wool in DW vinegar (left) and BriWax steel wool in DW vinegar (right). The photo pair at left is the reaction after 1 day and the pair at right after 3 days. After 3 days, nearly all of the BriWax steel wool was consumed, but about half of the Rhodes steel wool remained. At right are two photos of the filter paper used to remove the small amount of solid remaining and the filtrate of the BriWax-DW vinegar reaction mixture on day 3 and again 1 day later (far right). The filtrate initially contained mostly ferrous acetate (greenish brown solution) and then began to be oxidized in air to basic iron acetate (red–brown solution)