jdurg

I would take the funnel you have and insert it into the open end of a U tube. (So the outelt of the flask you have would be connected to a tube leading into the open side of a U tube, then the funnel would be on the other opening with the narrow portion pointing downwards). At this point in time, take a watch glass and place it over the opening of the funnell. Put some ice on the watch glass and the I2 vapor will condense on the bottom. From that point, just scrape off the purified iodine. If you want to purify it some more, take your scrapings and repeat the sublimation/condensation procedure.

I just never knew that they named the gases after Alfred Nobel. (I know they are called Noble because of their refusal to react, but Nobel just doesn't seem right).

Then you'd definitely get a kick out of 'Family Guy' if you haven't seen it already.

I think they also accept credit cards as well. You can send them an e-mail and they generally respond very quickly. Very good customer service there.

VERY much so. Just as I think everybody who has ever worked in an cubicle should be required to watch "Office Space", everyone who has ever laughed at the word "fart" or "testicle" should be required to watch Family Guy.

Probably because people may still be in high school at the age of 18 and the state wants to prevent them from buying cigarettes and selling/giving them to kids at school who are under the legal age. By moving it up to 19, they pretty much guarantee that someone of legal age is not in high school anymore. (Yes there may be exceptions, but at this point that's just what they are; exceptions).

X-Mas was okay. Sadly, I've kind of grown out of the whole hoopla surrounding it so to me it's just another day. Anyway, the big fat tresspasser left me with the following goodies over the past few weeks : Family Guy Season 4 DVDs Simpsons Season 7 DVDs Seinfeld Season 6 DVDs 2005 Topps Baseball Complete Set A set of micro screwdrivers Two new sweaters A golf lessons DVD set. Bill Kroen's Golf Tip-A-Day 2006 desktop calender. 1979 Canadian One Ounce Gold Maple Leaf Bullion Coin.

KClO4 is potassium PERchlorate and not potassium CHLORate.

Radon, Xenon, Krypton and Argon have all been forced into chemical bonds with other elements. Helium MAY theoretically be able to form a chemical compound but only at insanely low temperatures and in the right conditions. (One would have to have an alpha particle bond to a negatively charge species. Alpha particles are bare helium nuclei and it is possible to have a bare nucleus attach to an electron rich species, however I don't think it has ever actually been done).

Nope. You can EASILY find it on E-Bay as it is used EXTENSIVELY in the home soap-making hobby. It's incredibly cheap as well.

The white stuff is a reflection of the surface that the vial is sitting on. When I get a chance this weekend, I'll try and get a better photo of the vial to really show off that blue tinge to it. The blue color is exactly the same as that of a hydrated copper sulfate salt. Could it be possible that the copper reacted with the gallium in some manner? Something like a CuGa compound which has dissolved in the Ga. I now know that in a sodium/mercury amalgam the sodium reacts quite loosely forming an Na2Hg, or NaHg2 (Can't remember the exact formula) metal-metal compound.

You'd probably have to do an indirect measurement, but as to how that could be done stumps me. Something like a series of objects A=>B=>C where C is a 'heat pump' and is able to constantly take heat energy away from the object to its left. B is a similar thing. If C is no longer absorbing anymore energy from B then B must have absorbed all the energy from A so A must be at absolute zero. Something to that effect.

This is pretty neat. A while ago I had made a post in regards to some gallium that I had which had taken on a bluish tint and was really confusing me. I had obtained a bunch more gallium to add to my collection and had melted it down so I could pour it into the container with my existing gallium. I also wanted to have a mirrorlike surface to it so I had to scrape away the little bit of oxide that floated to the top and stuck to the sides of the glass. To remove the oxide, I used some newly stripped copper wire bent into a little hook. The oxide stuck to the copper and I was able to clean my Gallium. When the gallium solidified, however, I noticed that it had taken on a bluish color along the sides of the glass. I think I've come to realize that the bluish color is the result of some copper atoms which have dissolved inside the gallium metal. I now wonder how the copper is giving off the blue color inside the metallic gallium.

Take a whole bunch of animal fat and mix it with some powdered NaOH. Let this steep for a little while and the pure glycerine will move to the top as the soap settles down at the bottom. This is probably the easiest way to get glycerine and as a side benefit you get your own soap as a side product.

Point taken. (I actually realized the poor wording after it was too late to edit my post. )

I can't recall offhand if the Ni needs to be in a metallic form or if it will work with ions, but bubbling some carbon monoxide gas would result in the production of Ni(CO)4 which will move out of solution and leave the iron behind. Problem is, Nickel carbonyl is VICIOUSLY lethal.

How are you setting up your KMnO4 pile? That plays a HUGE role on whether or not the thermite would ignite. The reaction between KMnO4 and Glycerine gives off a great deal of heat, but if it is not concentrated enough then the heat gets wasted. When I've ignited thermites with KMnO4/Glycerine mixtures, I've dug a small little pit in the middle of the thermite and filled it in with the KMnO4 which forms a tiny little "hill" so to speak on the thermite mound. In this hill, I used my glove covered finger and made a raised well in the KMnO4. To this, I dribbled the glycerine into this well and moved away. The fact that the KMnO4 was "infused" into the thermite in a relatively small mound, and the fact that a well was made where the glycerine was added forced the reaction to occur in a small section and drive the heat into one part of the thermite. This ignited and the rest is molten iron history. If you don't set up the KMnO4 mound properly, then the heat of reaction will be lost to the atmosphere and not focused on your thermite.

Nitric acid can be purchased through certain web-based sites but it's a bit pricey in small quantities due to all the Hazmat fees. It's also a real pain to store which is a reason why I haven't gone through and purchased more. I think the e-bay seller al-chymist (sp?) has his own website where you can get a liter of concentrated nitric acid for about $50 or $60 I think. I just don't have a dedicated storage area for it and because HNO3 is such a potent oxidizer I don't want it anywhere near any organic material.

While those are examples, in a high school or undergraduate lab you will pretty much never use those. Also, I like to go by the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method of teaching chemistry to people. Having them memorize the entire list of strong acids when in reality they will never need to learn them all is just a waste. If someone sees a list of 8 items and is told to memorize it then they're much more likely to do that than if you give them a list of 16 items, 8 of which they will probably never come across. Yes there are exceptions to many rules, but in many cases there is no need to memorize those exceptions. A good analogy is with the structure of the atom. When someone is first learning about atomic structure, you tell them that there is a nucleus which is orbited by electrons. That's pretty much all they need to know. If you started putting in the full reality about quantum mechanics in there, NOBODY would ever bother to continue on. I see this type of thing happening a lot on message boards in regards to various subjects. Someone will come in and ask a question about a topic while someone else goes and gives them 3-years worth of the topic in one post mentioning every exception to the rule and every single possible item that falls into the category. I can pretty much guarantee that the person asking the simple question either didn't understand the response or didn't care anymore about it after seeing the response. It's crucial to look at the question asked by the poster and provide an answer based on that question. None of us learned everything about chemistry in one day. We learned piece by piece and over the course of a few years we gained the knowledge we have today. The human brain learns by piecing things together like a jigsaw puzzle. Keeping things simple until the complexity is needed is really the best way to go. I didn't "forget" about HBrO4, or H2SeO4, or HMnO4, or peroxymonosulfuric acid, or antimonicpentafluoride acid (I think that's the name), or the other acids mentioned above. I just don't see why someone who was asking "what are strong acids?" would need to know that at this time. Had he asked "I know that HCl, HBr, HI, H2SO4, etc. are strong acids, but are there any others?" then yeah, telling him about all these odd acids that many chemists will never deal with would be worth it. Based on his question, however, telling him that HCl, HBr, HI, HNO3, H2SO4, and HClO4 are the strong acids is good enough. (BTW, HNO3 is one of those numerous exceptions to the rule and one of the cases where you really don't need to bother knowing that it has a pKa of -1 as in nearly all reactions involving HNO3 the equillibrium will eventually cause all of the HNO3 to dissociate).

Yeah, it is some nasty stuff. I've "worked" with it before but on a micro microscale quantity. (I.E. a few crystals of the one compound, then a few barely visible of the other compound. Hit with a hammer and 'KAPOW!'. A combination of crystals no bigger than the head of a nail made a sound loud enough to scare the bejesus out of me). Armstrong's mixture is also a good reason to keep a neat and tidy lab. You don't want to have a spill involving both of the ingredients because at that point if the two compounds were spilled into each other you'd have a serious problem at hand. Oddly enough, the addition of one other compound turns the dangerously volatile concoction into something we tend to use quite frequently.

Because the number of strong acids is so incredibly small compared to weak acids, it's easy to just remember what the strong acids are: HCl HBr HI HNO3 H2SO4 HClO4 All other acids are basically 'weak' acids. Technically speaking, if in a one molar solution the acid dissociates 100%, then it is called a 'strong acid'. Anything less than 100% is called a weak acid.