Barium Phosphide, Ba₃P₂

Barium Phosphide, Ba₃P₂, has been obtained similarly to strontium phosphide by reducing the phosphate with lamp-black inthe electric furnace. It is a dark-coloured compound with a brilliant crystalline fracture, and of density 3.183. It is not so readily attacked by reagents as strontium phosphide. It burns in chlorine at 90° C., and in bromine vapour at 260°-300° C. Water decomposes it in the cold with the formation of barium hydroxide and evolution of phosphoretted hydrogen.

An impure phosphide is also formed by the action of phosphorus vapour on barium oxide.