Terry22

Thanks, That's very helpful (and informative, too). Terry

That's fascinating. Thanks for your suggestions. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedSomeone suggested Chrome Chloride? Or Copper Chloride? An easy test to determine each?

OK. I'll give it a go. For the sake of argument it's blue -- not deep blue, but quite a vibrant blue. Very unnatural-looking. It has no odour. It's not as fine as salt, it's quite chalky in appearance. And it's all heaped up in a nice little cone. Put your finger into it and residual powder comes off. Rub your fingers together and it's quite soft and dry -- like talc, staining your fingers slightly, but you can brush it off. If you sniffed it some might go up your nose and make you sneeze. Put water on it and it doesn't soak into it immediately -- kinda beads on the surface, or at least there appears to be some resistance. Drop some into a beaker and it takes a while to disperse and sink -- doesn't really turn the water blue. It's very slightly bitter to taste. No idea what would happen if you burnt it. Terry

Hi, Thanks for your replies, It's a bit of a macguffin in the storyline, so I don't want to turn it into something really major that's going to take a lot of exposition. The substance can be literally anything. I decided on a powder because it's simple, and a coloured powder as opposed to white powder seemed more fun (and less likely to be mistaken as cocaine or other drugs -- this is for kids, y'see) but I guess it doesn't matter too much. It could be a jelly, or ... I dunno ... anything but not a liquid (unless it's quite viscous, perhaps, like treacle). It's not important to the plot exactly WHAT the substance is, it's just important that the student can do a couple of simple tests (either adding water or using a flame) to identify it. As I've never studied chemistry, I naively wondered if there were some simple solutions (pardon the pun) to this. Perhaps I'm making trouble for myself. It's all quite light-hearted but I wanted it to be based on reality rather than make up an imaginary chemical (which I may have to do). Terry

Yes this must seem strange to a chemist. I must confess, I have no intention of reproducing this experiment. I'm writing a story in which the protagonist (a student) discovers a strange compound (powder or solid or whatever -- the colour isn't so important, neither is the substance, as long as it's not liquid) and he/she must quickly identify it. I'm ignorant when it comes to chemistry, so I was hoping that maybe there are common, simple experiments that students typically attempt at high-school that might make this scenario convincing. I don't want to create a situation that's unbelievable, or wander into the realms of science fiction. I was just wondering whether there are any (probably safe, possibly non-toxic) colourful powders or compounds that are easily identifiable by one or two very simple procedures?

Ha ha! I'm not being asked to "develop a chemistry-lab activity" but thanks for your concern. This is a "hypothetical question" (well, that's what the title of my post says).

Hello. I'm afraid I'm not a chemist. Is it possible to identify an anonymous substance in a high school chemistry lab using the equipment available? For example, the students are given an unlabeled blue powder and asked to identify it. How would one go about this, and what would the likely answers be? Is this too complex for a school lab? If so, is there a similar experiment one could ask students to do? Terry