Does a reaction occur when aqueous solutions of calcium chloride and sodium hydroxide are combined?

I posed this question at the Seasoned Advice SE and thought I might get some more information here.

Traditionally prepared corn is cooked in a calcium hydroxide solution to make it more digestible, but when my search for $\ce{Ca(OH)2}$ hit a dead end, I began thinking: could I make a substitute with stuff I already have (sodium hydroxide, which I use for pretzel/soap making; and calcium chloride, for brewing)?

My thought process was that, upon dissolving, sodium hydroxide plus calcium chloride would provide the same ions (though not necessarily in the same concentration) as calcium hydroxide and sodium chloride. Since I would be adding salt to this recipe at some point anyway, I didn't see any harm to this.

Is this feasible, or am I off-base in my chemical understanding about this? More importantly, is there some chemical consideration I've failed to take into account?

Answer

Hint: We know that when calcium chloride ($CaC{{l}_{2}}$) reacts with sodium hydroxide (NaOH), double displacement reaction takes place and a forms a white precipitate in the solution. Double displacement reaction is the chemical reaction in which one component of each of both the reacting molecules is exchanged to yield the products.

Complete answer:

Note:

Calcium chloride, #"CaCl"_2#, and sodium hydroxide, #"NaOH"#, are soluble in water, which implies that they exist as ions in aqueous solution.

#"CaCl"_ (2(aq)) -> "Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"Cl"_ ((aq))^(-)#

#"NaOH"_ ((aq)) -> "Na"_ ((aq))^(+) + "OH"_ ((aq))^(-)#

When you mix aqueous solutions of calcium chloride and sodium hydroxide, the calcium cations will combine with the hydroxide anions to form calcium hydroxide, #"Ca"("OH")_2#, an insoluble solid that precipitates out of solution. The other product is aqueous sodium chloride, itself a soluble ionic compound that exists as ions in solution.

So the two cations are exchanging partners, which is why this reaction is a double replacement reaction.

The calcium cations start combined with the chloride anions in solid calcium chloride and end up combined with the hydroxide anions.

Similarly, the sodium cations start combined with the hydroxide anions in solid sodium hydroxide and end up combined with the chloride anions--keep in mind that if we were to evaporate all the water, we would get solid sodium chloride as the second product of the reaction.

So, put all this together to get

#"CaCl"_ (2(aq)) + 2"NaOH"_ ((aq)) -> "Ca"("OH")_ (2(s)) darr + 2"NaCl"_ ((aq))#

The complete ionic equation looks like this

#"Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"Cl"_ ((aq))^(-) + 2"Na"_ ((aq))^(+) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "Ca"("OH")_ (2(s)) darr + 2"Na"_ ((aq))^(+) + 2"Cl"_ ((aq))^(-)#

The net ionic equation, which you get by eliminating the spectator ions

#"Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"Cl"_ ((aq))^(-)))) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"Na"_ ((aq))^(+)))) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "Ca"("OH")_ (2(s)) darr + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"Na"_ ((aq))^(+)))) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"Cl"_ ((aq))^(-))))#

looks like this

#"Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "Ca"("OH") _(2(s)) darr#