hermanntrude

are you mad? 23 g of sodium? that'd be an enormous reaction. I did it with a gram or two and felt a little scared.

It's that time of year again, folks. Between 6:02am and 6:02pm in the 10th month on the 23rd day, we celebrate the mole. Question is, how? I'm thinking of perhaps blowing up a mole of something in a spectacular fashion...

i think the trick is to use a small quantity of acid... if there's too much then the carbon doesn't solidify and remains slushy

I've been looking at youtube vids again and ive thought of two methods for improving this demo... 1) use icing sugar, for better surface area to volume ratio... this should speed the reaction up 2) use a conical flask instead of a beaker... this would make the carbon "snake thinner and therefore longer.... i'm not sure if this is safe, thought because if the carbon isnt soft enough it might plug up the neck and make the flask explode? perhaps it's better to use a glass measuring cylinder? what do you think? also... what happens with other carbohydrates? fructose, glucose, starch?

look what i found : LINK phwoar!

i wouldnt sell tickets because i'm an instructor, not a circus performer. And it'd be the school that paid for the whole thing... however, it seems like a lot of money for one demo, and i dont know if i can justify the cost to my seniors

yes i've learned that lesson the hard way several times through absent-mindedness

the kit itself should take care of aspect 1, and even if it gets blocked... it'd just be like a sealed cylinder again, wouldnt it? aspect 2, the lecture bottle is much smaller... it can be held in one hand

I have a lecture bottle of CO2, and a kit for making dry ice from a cylinder. However... the kit specifies that you must use a cylinder which has an internal siphon, which is designed so that you draw from the liquid portion at the bottom of the cylinder. What i'm wondering, though, is whether it'd be safe to simply use my lecture bottle, but upside-down. what do you guys think?

Another thread made me think about bismuth. I spent some time researching the stuff and came up with a few facts that surprised me: bismuth is a metal but forms amazing cubic crystals bismuth has a low melting point, and can be crystallised at home using a stove-top bismuth, weirdly, is non-toxic, despite the fact it's next to polonium and lead bismuth is the largest atom which is (to normal extents and purposes) not radioactive bismuth expands upon freezing, just like water does bismuth is the most diamagnetic naturally occuring substance The last point on my list made me think about a demonstration i had seen involving a grape and a set of neodymium magnets. It was intended to show that the water in the grape is diamagnetic. I figured if it worked with water it'd work a lot better with bismuth, so I got my lump of bismuth from home and attached it to a pencil, attached a counterweight to the other end, and hung the whole thing from a string on a retort stand. Then I allowed it to come to equilibrium and then approached the bismuth with a set of neodymium magnets. Lo and behold it was noticeably repelled by either pole of the magnets.

I like it. the front page should be easy to view all at once and i've long thought that the front page here was too bulky

i've been researching this stuff and i'd really like to use it in my lab for demos. the trouble is that it costs $300 for a small cylinder (lecture bottle). I'm not sure i can justify the cost

moved to projects, although I couldn't really see any science in it. Certainly, it's not chemistry

please dont be careless with chemicals. i've seen people die that way.

OK first and foremost, if you're gonna mess with chlorine BE EXTREMELY careful. It can make your lungs bleed internally, and you wont even know what's happening for a while. having said that here is a method for making chlorine gas. here is the safety data on chlorine so you know what to do

seriously when doing a chemical reaction, grabbing the nearest acid shouldn't be a step you take

try adding words to your search. words like reaction or discovery, perhaps

moved to homework help.

there's a short book by Isaac Asimov called "a whiff of death", which is based on just that kind of thing. It also has a clever attempt at murder involving smearing oil on an oxygen cylinder

this is the second time i've had to move one of your posts to homework help. Please READ THE RULES another thing: we usually ask that you not only state the question but give us an idea where you're having difficulties with it... This is a stoichiometry question. Conversion factors are important. You will need to know how to convert grams to moles and moles to grams. You will also need to figure out how many moles of zinc chloride are formed per mole of zinc reacted. Then you can look up the formula for mass percent and plug in the numbers. Let me know how you get on

it's actually really easy to make gold, that's why everyone goes round with suitcases full of it.

i've actually heard of an incident where a student ingested potassium cyanide in front of his/her colleagues. One of my old group members did the same thing, but in private.

what was the purpose of using sulfuric/H2O2? Why did you set out to make iodoform in this manner? I havent got a clue what you made, but perhaps you shouldn't try again until you know what you're doing

it's not just inlays. you can make a whole ring out of it... it's quite strong thanks to the copper

worst chemical smell i remember is phenyl cyanide, or benzonitrile. Smells like almonds and death. Most amusing smell, piperidine... smells just like semen