Barium chlorate Barium chlorate Barium chlorate, Ba(ClO), is a white crystalline solid, the barium salt of chloric acid. It is an irritant and toxic, as are all soluble barium compounds. It is sometimes used in pyrotechnics to produce a green color. It also finds use in the production of chloric acid. Barium chlorate can be produced through a double replacement reaction between solutions of barium chloride and sodium chlorate: On concentrating and chilling the resulting mixture, barium chlorate precipitates. This is perhaps the most common preparation, exploiting the lower solubility of barium chlorate compared to sodium chlorate. The above method does result
Chlorate natural chlorate deposits around the world, with relatively high concentrations found in arid and hyper-arid regions. The chlorate was also measured in rainfall samples with the amount of chlorate similar to perchlorate. It is suspected that chlorate and perchlorate may share a common natural formation mechanism and could be a part of the chlorine biogeochemistry cycle. From a microbial standpoint, the presence of natural chlorate could also explain why there is a variety of microorganisms capable of reducing chlorate to chloride. Further, the evolution of chlorate reduction may be an ancient phenomenon as all perchlorate reducing bacteria described to date