Barium green color. Barium sulfate is used as an insoluble additive to oil well drilling fluid, as well as in a purer form, as X-ray radiocontrast agents for imaging the human gastrointestinal tract. The soluble barium ion and soluble compounds are poisonous, and have been used as rodenticides. Barium is a soft, silvery-white metal, with a slight golden shade when ultrapure. The silvery-white color of barium metal rapidly vanishes upon oxidation in air yielding a dark gray oxide layer. Barium has a medium specific weight and good electrical conductivity. Ultrapure barium is very difficult to prepare, and therefore many properties of
Ammonium chlorate an excess of tartric acid. Then, a double displacement reaction will result in precipitation of potassium bitartrate. On heating, ammonium chlorate decomposes at about 102 °C, with liberation of nitrogen, chlorine and oxygen. It is soluble in dilute aqueous alcohol, but insoluble in strong alcohol. This compound is a strong oxidizer and should never be stored with flammable materials. Ammonium chlorate is a very unstable oxidizer and will decompose, sometimes violently, at room temperature. This results from the mixture of the reducing ammonium cation and the oxidizing chlorate anion. Even solutions are known to be unstable. Because of the dangerous