pHzero

I'm considering making some ethanol by fermentation, so I can get some (relatively) pure EtOH to use as a solvent, not adultered with MeOH and pyridine, and also just to try my hand at fermentation and distillation, for the fun of it basically. So can anyone recommend a feedstock for the yeast? The most obvious one would be sugar, but its pretty damn expensive. Apparently in beer production, no sugar's used at all, and all of it comes from enzymes in barley digesting the seed into simple sugars which the yeast can act upon. Is the same possible with porridge oats? My local supermarket sells them at 73p/kilo, so if they work, they'd be great. I've also heard that sweetcorn works quite well. So, which is the best to use?

Excellent, thanks for the info. I think I'll buy 25l of MeOH then, and 5l of Me2CO for stuff that MeOH doesn't clean off. Me2CO's about the same price as IPA so I suppose it makes sense to use the least viscous and most volatile one. Plus I could probably get used IPA from my mum's work if I needeed it; they use it to sterilise cables for pacemakers. A quick wash off afterwards with MeOH should get rid of any impurities the used IPA leaves behind.

Ah right, i see. Sounds very thorough though, do you think methanol alone would be sufficient for an amateur chemist like myself? You can get methanol for about £1/litre, you see, whereas IPA or acetone's about double that price.

Does anyone know if methanol's a suitable cleaning solvent for cleaning lab glassware? Or would I be better off going for something more expensive like propanone or propan-2-ol? I know methanol's more toxic, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as the area's well-ventilated, right?

Haha no, they still iodise salt, but if you buy over a certain amount of iodine (i think its 30mg) in any form (elemental, iodide, iodocarbons etc), you get reported to some investigations beaureau cause its used in the red (phosphorus), white (ephedrine) and blue (iodine) process of making methamphetamine.

Yeah, V2O5 would be great, but unfortunately theres nowhere in the UK which sells it to private individuals. I'm surprised united nuclear can sell it, along with mercury and sulphuric acid when theyve actually gone so far as to practically ban an element (iodine) in the US (woop, over here we can but 10kg of iodine and nobody cares )

That gives me another idea (Btw I'm not saying your suggestions are bad or arguing... I hope it doesnt seem that way. I'm just brainfarting about how to improve the method.) If SO2 is soluble in H2SO4, maybe a variation on my idea of pumping SO2 into water might work. Burn sulphur. Bubble the SO2 thats produced through some H2SO4, along with excess O2. Unless I'm mistaken, SO3 always forms in tiny amounts in equilibrium with SO2+O2. When it forms SO3, that will react with the sulphuric acid to form H2S2O7. The loss of the SO3 will then drive the reaction further to the SO3 side and eventually all of the SO2 will oxidise to SO3. Sorry if i seem like a complete idiot, I've only been doing chemistry for a few years.. Its because I am Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdit: One word. Ozone. Discuss. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAnother edit: This website says that you can just react SO2 with ozone to make SO3: http://www.ucc.ie/academic/chem/dolchem/html/comp/so3.html Sorry for the triple post

Ah that sorta makes sense. Do you know if it matters if I use H2SO4 as the solvent instead of water, so I get H2S2O7 rather than dilute H2SO4? I've still got a litre of so of 98% which mum bought home from work for me And yeah, I'll be careful mum gets really pissed off when i fumigate the house with anhydrous acid gases (she wasnt happy when i filled the house with HCl). I'll do it outside. While my parents are at work. xD I should probably order some nitrate now

Problem with that is, i don't have a sealed lead chamber, and i don't have the equipment to make one. I've got an old lead acid battery i could take apart to get hte lead out of but no way of welding it. (I'm only 16 xD) But perhaps I could combine the contact process and lead chamber process? I'm thinking, instead of V2O5 catalyst, run the SO2 through XNO3 to oxidise it, a bit like you recommended. It'd get used up but I guess thats something i could live with. What gets left over when XNO3 oxidises something? Do you get XNO2 + O, XO+N2+O or something else? Once I've got the SO3, the rest is easy. I can bubble it through concentrated sulphuric acid to get oleum.

Hmm... is that another name for the galvanic series? And what am I looking for, reactive or unreactive? I thought I just wanted a metal oxide which readily gives up its oxygen then gains it back upon reaction with elemental oxygen Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedWait... I just thought... do I even need to convert the SO2 to SO3? If I dissolve SO2 in water and bubble oxygen through it, wont the production of SO3 be thermodynamically favourable due to the high exothermicity of the hydration of SO3? Then that leaves you with an H2SO4 aerosol which you can cool in a condenser.

Hours and minutes are completely manmade creations. So even if this "mystical energy" or whatever it is did exist, it would be a huge coincidence that it could have anything to do with those particular times

Hey there, I'm looking for a catalyst other than V2O5 which can be used to catalyse the reaction: 2SO2+O2-->2SO3 So far I've considered.... FeO, I think something like this might happen: FeO is unstable below about 800 centigrade, so 3FeO <--> Fe2O3 + Fe 4Fe + 3O2 --> 2Fe2O3 Fe2O3 + SO2 --> SO3 + 2FeO But I'm also worried that this might happen: 2Fe2O3 + 6SO2 + 3O2 --> 2Fe2(SO4)3 I also thought about using manganese dioxide: MnO2 + SO2 --> MnSO4 (I'm sure this bit's correct, wikipedia says so xD) MnSO4 --> SO3 + MnO (That's a hypothetical thermal decomposition reaction... not sure if that takes place) 2MnO + O2 --> 2MnO2 (ditto) And copper (ii) oxide: 2CuO + SO2 --> Cu2O + SO3 2Cu2O + O2 --> 4CuO Does anyone know if any of these will work? Or any others which will work?

I tried this a couple of days ago, since I have plenty of ferric chloride which i use to etch pcbs. It kinda worked, but the reaction want anywhere near as violent as with real thermite. It got hot enough to melt the aluminium, but there were no flames and it needed to be stirred to keep the reaction going.... But, its quite an easy reaction to start. Unlike iron oxide, ferric chloride melts at 34 degrees, the same as chocolate. So that means it'll melt if you hold it in your hand (although i dont recommend it). I might be able to use this to my advantage though: Perhaps if I took normal thermite and added a little bit of ferric chloride, it'd make easier to ignite thermite? It'd ignite if you left it outside on a hot day or if you aimed a hairdryer at it. The ferric chloride would melt and react a little bit with the aluminium, which will make heat and melt more ferric chloride and eventually there should be enough heat to melt the aluminium or the iron oxide?