Fortuna

Yea, I know. Not exactly physical chemistry theory but a real world classic problem. Call me stupid , but.... I was making an aldehyde of an oil, an unobnoxius critter really, but it was/is dissolved in some methyl alcohol. I had in a flattened bot RB bottom ground neck flask. It needed to be dry for the next process and I had just remover it from the freezer. So I added some nice dry silica to it, and put the pyrex stopper in it, put on the mag stirrer on slow for a while, and let it settle. (oops !). I thought the warming up would offset the dessicant sucking up the water (and thinking for the dessicant would expand a bit as it hydrated). Anyway, no luck, the darn pyrex stopper is really jammed on there thanks to my creating a vacuum inside. I tried heating up up, and I observed the MeOH starting to boil. After it boiled for a little while, I tried to remove the stopper with no luck. As I watched it continue to boil, I thought to myself that this wasn't such a good idea, was it ? (if the stopper has acummulated some oil which has dried out it might be acting like glue, oh sheeet! ). Anyway, I aborted the boil and immediately gave it a cold water bath. Any ideas on how to get that stopper out, short of breaking the neck of the flask ? And please don't lecture me about Si grease. It would have contaminated the product in this case. Had to be done dry.

Sulfuric, Understood. To each his own I suppose. I guess I have difficult understanding such motive because I'm professionally biased and think in terms of practicality using an economic mindset. From that POV, I can't imagine spending many hours of time and money for precursors cooking up something I can buy for cheap (but that's my issue). I do some experimenting, but my synths usually involve many steps, and I will tend to focus my efforts on those processes I have to do or for those that aren't available or where it isn't practical or economical to buy the precursor or process chem. So, we just approach from 2 entirely different perspectives I suppose. So, off you go, and good luck. At one time I was really into pyrotechnic chemistry and getting color from different chems during the burn (like color bursts and delayed color displays, etc).

Ahem, The good news is that your method for making Caro's acid isn't even close. The bad news is that if you keep experimenting with trying to make persulfurics you will end up with a Darwin award at best, and at worst you will end up on the wrong end of natural selection. Niether of these is a good place to be.

Nevermore, I see no difference. It is a conditioned response to others in the environment. Further, we know that empathy can be chemically induced. How is this empathy therefore any different than a phobia, from a conditioned response pov ? I suggest that it can be treated exactly like a phobia, and that it might be treated with the right meds.

Dear Bettina, After having read through this thread, The best I can do is to make some observations about your condition, and perhaps we can figuree out some remedy. Hopefully, what I post will be of some use to you. I like your approach in reaching an understand it without the use of non-natural "psychic" or "ESP" explanations. One poster said it well,"there are no extra-sensory perceptions, just perceptions. These simply lead you into more unknown territory and ultimately are not useful for remedial purposes. Of course what I write will probably come out sounding very scientific and perhaps too straightforward, but then you are on a science forum, so you know what types of creatures we are ? Let us consider the case of the young boy is afraid of dogs. Whenever our boy sees a dog, he has a response in which he becomes frightened, with all the mental, emotional and physical (and thus biochemical) changes. He may not know at the time why he is afraid of dogs, only that he is. What usually has happenned in these cases is that at some time in the past (maybe much younger, as an enfant) he had a bad encounter with a canine. Perhaps he only encountereed a little nip from a chiwawa (sp?-promounce phonetically) then had the memory of it. Every time therafter when he saw a dog, he became afraid, thus re-enforcing the response. This is what is called a conditioned response. More generally, this was the subject of the well known "Pavlov's Dogs" experiments. The dogs exhibited a physical and chemical response (they salivated) in their bodies when they heard a bell, because they received food soon after the bell rang. This response was re-enforced by consistently dispensing food some short time after the bell rang. In the case of our caninophobe young boy, he sensed the dog by obvious sensory clues (i.e. visual, auditory). Although every encounter with a dog is different for our boy, his physical reaction is consistent. The learned reaction is repeated, and re-enforced. Perhaps however, he has become more selective in his reaction. He no longer fears a dog he sees outside his window, as he knows the dog cannot get to him.(this "selectivity" thus varies by the situation) A related and curious bit of information perhaps worth mentioning here is that there are in fact several specific chems of a certain class (PEAs) have a side effect that has been consistently reported as "empathetic feelings" (there are other sdie efefects as well). Some psychiatrists have studied and reported their use during psychotherapy sessions with enhanced results in many cases. REmember, the reason these organic chemicals have these effects on the human body is that they molecularly resemble one or several natural biochemicals in the body.(a receptor model is used for reception, not important right now). If you wish to think of it this way, you might ask yourself is if what you experience is indeed a conditioned response to the clues of sadness and pain in those around you.(Even in your Jessica encounter could have been a conditioned response produced by the news story). When you sense this sadness and misfortune you respond by becoming empathetic, like the boy who was physically frightened by the dogs. It also seems as if you have also become selective. For our little boy, there are a few options ; - Make the boy mor selective, until he is no longer afraid. Perhaps the boy is exposed to puppies for a time, then to progressively larger dogs. - Mentally, physiologically or chemically the response is inhibited. Mentally, he focuses and he braves it up to a dog, and repeats this behavior. In the chemical ideal, our boy could takes a med that temporarily suppresses secretion of the cortical steriods epinephrine and/or nor-epinephrine. - He could try to recall, and psychologically resolve the initial event that began the behavior. If you believe that this applies to you, how might you apply these ideas or a combination of them. Are there any others that might inhibit the behavior ?

H2SO4, I suppose that what I do not understand is why you don't just purchase it outright ? I just looked it up, 10 lbs of it costs $35US. What seems to be difficult to obtain anymore is the catalyst, which really gives it that extra-punch. Given your inclination towards these types products, I suggest that you pick up a copy of Davis's book "Chemistry of powder and Explosives" as a reference guide. For manufacture of ammonium nitrate specifically, see Federoff's "Encyclopedia of Explosives and Related Products" (1960) Vol 1, pp 311-380. Of course, Vogel's POC wouldn't be a bad idea either to have on your bookshelf, just for the practical info on just about every process you can imagine. There should also be some methods of extracting it from ammonia fertilizer. Given the solubility data which I just looked up, this shouldn't be all that difficult. Also, you can get a very good grade of HNO3 for $32.95US per liter. I think though the UPS Hazmat fee is about $40 US. If you want to make it, see "Comprehensive Inorganic Chemistry" Vol 2J, C Bailar, pp 375-388 (1975)

Actually, for automotive enamals (and most enamels used for metallic surfaces), the best solvent is probably dichloromethane (aka methylene chloride). It's cheap in the US (about $10/gallon) and very effective. You can get it at just about any auto-parts store. However beware. If the clothing has synthetic fibers, DCM will happily dissolve those as well. Acetone should also work fairly well, and wouldn;t be nearly as fast as DCM. Use in a well ventilated area. Not too healthy to breath it, and it evaps pretty quickly at ambient T and P. (I assume you don't plan to do this in a vacuum or hyperbaric chamber ) Pyridine ? That's one expensive solvent, plus, it is a scheduled precursor. Listed on the DEA schedule 1 precursors list (not the same as the controlled substances list). Of course, you could make your own pyridine if you're so inclined.