Nirmal Singh.
Last Activity: 10 Years ago
The simplest way would be to make the sodium salt by reacting it with NaOH.
Then evaporate it to near dryness and continue heating it
with a bunsen burner or similar heat source. The decarboxylation
will produce methane. This is hazardous because the methane will
catch fire with the flame or any spark so a gas collection
apparatus of some sort must be used.
Another method would be to run the electrolysis of the sodium
acetate reaction. Methane would be produced at the anode but
would be contaminated with CO2 and some ethane.
This method is known as the Kolbe electrolysis and is pretty slow.
Regards,
Nirmal Singh
Askiitians faculty