frosch45

Well, since joining the forum a couple of years ago, I've actually learned some chemistry. I look back on my questions and I chuckle a little on the inside because of what I asked. I made an informative video a few months back about the synthesis of nitric acid. Take a peak and rate it! I've learned a bit since I have joined.

Q: The escape speed from a very small asteroid is only 28 m/s. If you throw a rock away from the asteroid at a speed of 38 m/s, what will be its final speed? I know it's not 10 m/s. I was thinking of saying 28 = sqrt(2GM/Rinitial) to find the mass of the asteroid and then using that to find the final speed when it's thrown at 38 m/s, but then I also realized that I don't have the mass of the rock or radius of the rock, so that's out the window. Really, I'm not sure how to proceed, but this is what I know: Kball final + Kasteroid final + Ufinal = Kball initial + Kasteroid initial + Uinitial + W

yeah, but its a high explosive, and I'm really not interested in blowing anything up, including my hand. i just wanted a little nitrocellulose to make that little fireball shooter and nothing else

I recently watched this video on youtube cool stuff. I do have sulfuric and nitric acids, actually quite a bit of nitric stored in a chemical acid glass bottle, but I only have a little bit of sulfuric left, and I really don't feel like buying another bottle for $50 for my small-scale purposes described below, and its no fun to just buy nitrocellulose from a theater supply store. So this is what I was thinking: I do have a large amount of sodium bisulfate (yes bisulfate, not bisulfite). In water, I'm guessing that the sodium ions will completely fall off the HSO4- bisulfate ion. And although not all of the hydrogen ions will come off of the SO4-2, I think a good amount of them will when I dissolve the compound. So my question is if I made a saturated solution of sodium bisulfate, got it very cold, and mixed it with very cold conc. nitric acid, would it make a solution suitable for nitration?

At 650 °C, copper(II) sulfate decomposes into copper(II) oxide (CuO) and sulfur trioxide (SO3). At 650 °C A home chemist's hot plate can definitely not reach this, even the Corning PC-351 lab hotplate I have can only hit about 540. The only way you could do it would be with a small crucible over a very hot flame. At those temperatures it is hardly feasible to capture the SO3. You couldn't feed it directly into water either because the water would instantly boil because the gas is so hot. You certainly couldn't use plastic tubing, or that cheap stuff you can melt to bend and shape. And SO3 is toxic enough at regular temperatures, but at 650 °C!? YOU WOULD DIE IF YOU INHALED IT, and high temperature gasses (and therefore high pressure gasses) tend to make glassware break or explode, releasing themselves into your workspace. Definitely not a good idea.

oh. that makes sense. thanks.

I was just thinking about this. Space is said to be "cold", but really, because space is a giant vacuum, is it not the case that there are no particles with low amounts of energy floating around to take away heat from a substance? Say you have a 1 kg aluminum block at 500 degrees inside the international space station. You then throw the block out into space through a special airlock door. Wouldn't the block stay at that temperature because there are no cold particles around the block that the block can give its heat to? I honestly have no basis for thought in this kind of environment. Would the above, as I have described it, occur?

Alright then, sulfur is "easy" to burn in pure air. I won't argue with you. When I wrote the first post, I was thinking relatively to what I considered to be "easy."

http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/burning_sulfur/burning_sulfur.htm Don't read the stuff at the top of the page, just look at the picts/video I don't know, if you look at the pictures/video on that page, I wouldn't call it "easy" to burn sulfur in just regular atmospheric conditions, but "easy" is a relative term. It is certainly do-able, but I was trying to emphasize the difference when you use pure oxygen.

Its pretty hard to burn pure sulfur just in air. You need higher temperatures and a high concentration of oxygen. At high temperatures and with a Vandium (V) Oxide catalyst your SO2 will be converted to SO3, but that reaction is reversable.

lol, along that same vein, dyhydrogen monoxide has been making headlines lately http://www.dhmo.org/

I don't want to breathe anything, just have it so dense that it can hold up aluminum foil like the above video. Edit: Maybe I want to breathe oxygen...

put em down anyway!

Ah, that's what I was looking for. I didn't word my question very clearly. I had a bad expierence a with Van de Graff generator. I like to stay away from those

Imagine you had a strong magnet and two metal spheres of neutral charge. Could you charge them by induction if they were brought in contact, then the magnet was brought close to one of the balls (classic induction scenario) Basically, can a magnet be used as the charged object that moves the negative charges around? I would try it out myself except for the fact that its really humid here right now and I'm thinking that the charge would bleed off faster than someone can respond.

One suggestion, a fume hood can cost thousands of dollars for a really nice one, but one thing that I've found useful is a gas mask. It only cost me $20 USD at a local sports store after September 11th. Very useful, just to be safe. Granted, it won't save your skin, but it can certainly help save your lungs (which is the greater threat anyway). Eventually they wear out, but I rarely do anything that isn't very well contained that deals with toxic vapor.

lol, i don't have a labratory <kick self>, so unfortunately, in order to not risk vapor getting into the place that I sleep, I have to do it outside. I'm trying to be as safe as possible for this very dangerous (but thrilling) task.

Sounds good. Just one question. Why should I turn the adapter right side up? It always seems like more vapor gets through if its horizontal... I do like the idea of insulation. I hadn't even thought of that. I had actually used boiling chips, but they were glass, and now that I think about it, that glass is far too smooth to help. I'll use some plaster. Yes, in the Liebig, I got just fog, but because of the rapid changes in pressure in the system (boiling chips didn't even help that much unfortunately, i'll make them smaller next time), the liebig just helped keep that fog in an area where the gas was constantly cooling (and any condensed liquid would run away from the boiling system instead of back into the boiling flask). thanks for the tips, seriously

just tried it. it chars but i'm really interested if anyone has any observations pertaining to my first post?

I'm sure that I got the right distillate because when I was cleaning the classware with sodium bicarbonate it fizzed a lot. I know its not the traditional angle that one should use a three way adapter, but this sped up the process because the gas was able to flow to the condenser more freely, and it kept a tight seal anyway. Thanks for the response though.

Yes, that was very informative. I'm leaning right now towards this engineering. Thanks

So if I were to get a PHD in Biochemistry, I would theoretically then go to work for a pharmecutical company researching new drugs?

Thanks, that sounds interesting. I guess you use lots of physics? Anyone else?

I have come to the cusp of my life where it is time for me to make some decisions about my future career. I really do love chemistry, its so interesting! I was wondering what field of chemistry I should go into. I have thought of biochemical research, plastics/compositites research, going into the oil industry (I don't know much about this one).... Could anyone recommend a field that they find interesting/there are decent paying jobs for? Its unfortunate that I have to ask this, but I would really like to be able to support a good sized family when I get older (3-4 kids + wife) and I will need a decent salary, especially depending on the cost of living in the area in which I live. I live in the Untied States, and it seems that areas such as New York and California seem to be very large centers of the industry. Could anyone currently working (or formerly working) in the field tell me 1) Where you work 2) How you like it there 3) What division of chemical research you are in 4) What degree you earned in your university 5) Another field that you have heard good things about I really appreciate this. Maybe someday I can be as expierenced as many of you are edit: Any of you looking at how I spelled the title of my thread will understand why I am not majoring in English . Good thing there's spell check for your thesis though!

So I’ve just gotten a new container of sulfuric acid, but it has a black inhibitor in it (see below). I'm having real trouble, its frustrating because the distillation is terribly inefficient, and I was wondering if I could get some suggestions on my whole setup. I've been trying to get the acid over without the inhibitor, and it has certainly been working, but I would like to speed it up a little. So here is my overall setup: As you can see, I have a 1000 ml RBF leading to a three way joint (top part is stoppered). I decided to tilt the RBF so that it is at about a 30 degree angle from the ground in order for the vapor to more easily go down the liebig condenser. I was also trying to minimize the amount of condensation in the 3-neck joint that fell back into the RBF. This leads to a Liebig condenser. The reason I had this condenser is just to increase the condensation, but I actually think that it may be hindering the overall process. As you can see, this thing is insanely long. What often happens is that the vapor gets pushed into this condenser and it just sits there, even with the ice cold water running through the Liebig. The graham does a much better job, and I'm wondering if it would be more effective on its own. Next I have a 300 mm graham condenser. This is where the condensation takes place, if anywhere. Its interesting because the condensed pure acid will go up and down in the coil as affected by the boiling and my vacuum pump. Down at the bottom I have a vacuum adapter which is hooked up to a vacuum which pulls about 600 mm of mercury. Its just a hand crank, but its still effective. I have in the line leading to this vacuum a makeshift scrubber with NaHCO3. It has been pretty effective; I have put some ph paper inside it to observe and the scrubber has been doing a pretty good job. I like to keep the vacuum at 400 mm Hg. I then have a 1000 mL RBF to collect the distillate (ice bath in the picture has melted because I put lots of NaCl in the bath to help the ice melt. I have gotten about 150 mL after about 3 hours. So, I was wondering if there were any suggestions. Here are my concerns: 1) The setup is too long and has too much 'air' in the system. 2) The Liebig condenser is hindering the process instead of helping 3) Boiling chips are required (I had broken up some glass pieces and put them in the bottom, but I am not sure if this helped), and I often see evidence of super heating and then a sudden burst of vapor in my boiling flask 4) The acid is condensing in the 3-way joint and just falling back into the boiling flask. Should I turn my boiling area to be completely horizontal? (When I had the flask vertical, there was TONS of condensation in the 3-way joint occurring and just falling back into the boiling flask, but do you think that this is still the best way?) Thanks for helping me brainstorm some ideas.