jdurg

Well my method of balancing was a simple balance-beam type assembly and there is a chance for some experimental error there. (I do not possess a digital scale which would make it more precise). The big part of the experiment was seeing the gas bubble out as I heated up the palladium under the water. It was pretty neat to see the bubbles forming on the surface.

Remember that the 4s shell fills in before the 3d shell does, because as Yggdrasil pointed out, their energy levels are pretty much the same. When you move from Nickel to Copper, you would logically think that you'd go from 4s2-3d8 to 4s2-3d9. In Nickel (4s2-3d8) you have four totally filled 3d subshells and one empty one. If you just add one electron to that as you move to copper, then you'd have four totally filled shells and one half-filled shell. Since the 3d shell can hold a total of ten electrons, it would wind up being 9/10'th full which is an odd fraction. Shells want to be either half full, or totally full. Anything in between isn't good and if it's possible to rearrange the electrons to accomodate that then you'll probably see it happen. So in copper, an electron is taken from the 4s shell and added to the 3d shell along with the extra electron that copper has over nickel. As a result, you get a completely filled 3d shell and a half-filled 4s shell. This is nice and stable and everybody's happening. For fun, pick any random d or f block element and write out it's electron configuration before you look it up. Keeping in mind what has been said in this thread, you should even be able to figure out the 'odd' ones.

While the energy that tritium gas releases when it decays may be somewhat small, it's short half life (~12 years) means that it decays quite a bit in a short period of time. So the small energy of decay is overcome by the frequency of decay. The main problem with tritium is that it is a gas and it can readily be inhaled into your body. No matter how weak the energy of decay is, you don't want ANY radioactive gases inside of you. Your skin can stop most beta particles, but your lung tissue can't really do it without getting harmed. In addition, when the beta particles are stopped they tend to give off some x-rays which can cause some trouble. So I would be incredibly careful if you plan on working with tritium. If it's locked up into a compound then it's not nearly as bad as long as you don't go ingesting it. But as a gas it's not something I'd reccomend working with. (My own source of tritium is a compound inside a sealed key-ring).

That's why I stated "any stable chemical compounds that you're likely to find". Besides, those Xenon and Krypton compounds aren't exactly 'stable' since they tend to react with everything in existance. So you won't be able to generate your Xe or Kr via chemical means. With the ozone, I wouldn't worry about it. Ozone is INCREDIBLY reactive and will decompose rapidly into oxygen gas as you concentrate the air. (I.E. liquify it).

Heh. You'll pretty much ONLY find Xenon in an elemental form as it doesn't form any stable chemical compounds that you're likely to find. As to where to get it, you can always look for liquified gas companies as they probably have canisters of the gases. I will warn you that a full canister of Xenon or Krypton will cost a pretty penny since those gases are not exactly common, hence a high price. If you do want to try and obtain them yourself from liquid air, I can at least save you SOME research and post the boiling points (In Degrees Celcius) of the noble gases and other gases in air. He: -268.93 Ne: -246.08 N2: -195.79 Ar: -185.80 O2: -182.95 Kr: -153.22 Xe: -108.00 So if you liquify a bunch of air, you'll need to go and SLOWLY let it boil away while carefully monitoring the temperature. Once you see that the oxygen gas is boiling off the liquid that is left will be composed of Kr and Xe. I'll warn you, however, that even if you were to liquify massive quantities of air, you may only wind up with a few mL of the Xe/Kr mixture.

It has to do with PV=nRT. The Volume goes up pretty much infinitely when you let the gas escape from the can and the pressure only drops to normal atmospheric pressure. Since R is constant and the number of moles (n) is constant, the temperature has to decrease.

Typicaly speaking, when 'light' is referred to they generally mean the shorter wavelength sections of light such as the blues and violets and even into the ultaviolets which actually have a good deal of energy. As an example, if you mix equal moles of hydrogen and chlorine gas and then expose it red light, nothing will happen. Turn the light off and replace it with a blue filter and the reaction goes immediately.

Since Xenon and Krypton are virtually unreactive gases, the only way to obtain them from air is through fractional distillation. There is no chemical way to do it. The concentration of Xenon and Krypton in air is exceedingly low. Thier names arise from the Greek words Xenos (Stranger) and Kryptos (Hidden) due to the fact that these two gases are in such low quantities that early scientists simply could not see them. You need to liquify a LARGE amount of air to get any type of visible amount of Xe or Kr. Once everything is liquified, you would have to remove all of the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and argon from the air. It is simply not possible to do this in one's own home as the sheer size of the equipment you would need to do this is bigger than most people's homes. The only reason why these gases are even available is due to the large demand for liquified oxygen and nitrogen. The companies that produce liquid N2 and O2 deal with such large quantities of air that they actually can produce significant amounts of Xenon and Krypton. I guess it would be kind of like trying to extract gold from a source of gold ore. In order to get any appreciable amount, you'd have to process MASSIVE quantities of ore.

There was probably bits of moisture that found its way in there as I didn't want to heat the palladium up once it had adsorbed the hydrogen. (As it would then give it all back). So my drying methods were to use a paper towel and wipe off the water that was sticking to it. (In order to ensure proper adsorption of the H2, I had everything submerged underwater so as the H2 displaced the water it would adsorb onto the Pd without the Pd being used as an electrode). So yeah, there was indeed some water in there which probably altered the mass a bit. Still, seeing the bubbles coming off the Pd as I heated it up under water was pretty freaking sweet to see. (EDIT: The source of my electricity was an electrical outlet in my house moved through an AC adapter to change the AC current to DC current. I believe over here in the USA we have 110 volt outlets but I'm not sure about the amperage. I just know that it hurts like hell if you get zapped. )

Heh. Yeah. I couldn't remember off the top of my head whether it was aDsorbed or aBsorbed. I figured someone would point it out to me. And yeah, the mass increase did shock me, but for the length of time that I had the H2 passing through/onto the metal it didn't seem all too alarming.

I just have to say that this is the neatest thing I've seen. I recently purchased a one ounce palladium Maple Leaf coin to go with my one ounce ingot of Pd that I already own. Knowing that palladium absorbs hydrogen gas, I decided to see if this was true. I set up a balance using a flat piece of wood and a metal 'triangle' for the wood to balance on. I then put a one ounce sample of silver on one end and my palladium one ounce bar on the other end. The piece of wood balanced perfectly on the metal stand for it. I then went and marked where the balance point was and tried to balance other things to make sure the balance apparatus worked. It did. So I then went and set up an electrolysis apparatus where the hydrogen gas would be directed through some tubing right onto the palladium ingot I have. I did this little 'electrolysis' for quite a while to ensure that a good deal of hydrogen gas would get absorbed onto the palladium. After about five hours of continuous electrolysis, I went and tried to balance the palladium ingot with the one ounce silver ingot. The palladium ingot was heavier! By a good three grams or so, the palladium was heavier than the silver. So it had indeed absorbed a great deal of hydrogen gas. To remove the hydrogen, I went and placed the palladium in a shallow pan of water and heated the water up. You could see small bubbles of gas forming on the palladium as the temperature went up. I heated it until I could see no more bubbles forming, then I went and dried it off and reweighed everything. Once again, the palladium ingot balanced out the silver ingot on my balance. If anybody has some pure palladium metal around, I highly suggest trying this experiment out. It is incredibly neat to see.

Ahhhh. Very good question. Urine tends to have quite a bit of ammonia in there, so if you have your acids anywhere near a source of urine you would see the ammonium chloride/nitrate crystals.

Yes, but this discussion began by talking about standard state noble gases which all do have a full outer shell.

These are the same people who will also claim that natural hot spring waters are very good for you too. (As they fail to realize that the reason the spring water is so hot is becuase of radioactive material which is decaying in the water which gives off the heat).

The question was probably designed to show you that chemically there really is no difference between a 'natural' substance and a man-made one. As an aside, hemlock is a natural substance and I wouldn't consider it something that I want to digest. Same thing with tetrodotoxin.

I'm used to reading non-native English. (I work with it quite frequently). Basically, he's saying that he needs some help in chemistry but that English is not his native language so things are a bit tough. He would like it if someone would be able to 'tutor' him in chemistry. So if anybody knows of ANY chinese text chemistry sites, you should post them here.

Remember that the surface area of steel wool is a LOT greater than the surface area of an iron nail. Surface area plays a HUGE role in determining the rate of a reaction. (Hence why a platinum gauze is used to oxidize ammonia in the production of nitric acid and not just a lump of platinum metal. It's also why the palladium/rhodium/platinum in your catalytic converter is dispersed onto a honeycomb instead of existing as solid lumps of metal).

Barium metal is produced industrially via a BaO/Al thermite reaction. Pretty much ANY metal oxide and a more reactive 'pure and powdered' metal will react with each other.

HCl can be found in a grocery store if you look at the right place. Many of these Calcium/Lime/Rust removers contain a great deal of HCl in there. If you really want to concentrate it, just heat the CLR so that the HCl is driven off and make sure you direct the hydrogen chloride gas into another container of distilled water. You should be able to make some very concentrated HCl if you have enough of the CLR. Also, you can go to a pool chemicals store and get HCl in something upwards of a 10-gallon container.

BINGO! That's the company that I've purchased a LOT of stuff from. Usually by having a buddy of mine go in on an order with me so that it's more economical. Great burgers and other little additions. But I digress. The food is shipped in a container with dry ice contained in a plastic bag with numerous vent holes. The container is able to breathe so there is no risk of the CO2 sublimating away and causing trouble. The CO2 retains its 'cold' for quite some time and the styrofoam it's shipped in keeps it well insulated. You can ship CO2 through the air because the Omaha Steaks Co ships to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, albeit a bit pricey. Woelen, they may ship internationally but I'm guessing they wouldn't as the price of shipping would make it extraordinarily expensive.

Dry ice can be stored in any container that is vented to allow for the escape of the expanding gas. Whenever I order things like steaks or burgers through mail order, it comes in a simple sytrofoam box with a slab of dry ice in there. The package is typically in shipping for a good few days (and I order during the summer), yet the box is still incredibly cold and the dry ice is still there. Dry Ice is one of the easiest things to transport.

I have to chime in about the tarp analogy. The analogy simply does not work. To put a tarp around your house, they would have to build the tarp on your property. One's property extends vertically, not horizontally. So in order to block out the sun they'd have to place something in your property. Property that you paid for. In the case of the windmills, the windmills are NOT built on those homeowners' property. Therefore, why do they even have any say in the matter? If they wanted to build the windmills directly on their land, then yeah they'd have a right to argue. These are not being built on any property that they own, so they have no right to argue about their construction. The argument about the 'view' is malarky too. I live inland, so perhaps I should argue about the fact that those who live in houses closer to the shore than I do are blocking my view of the ocean. Their houses should then be destroyed so that I can get an ocean view.

I know that potatos, and other vegetables from the potato family, can be quite toxic if they are consumed raw, but are perfectly safe once they are cooked. Apple seeds, peach/apricot pits have high levels of amygdalin(sp?) in them which breaks down into cyanides upon digestion. So perhaps mixing apple seeds or apricot/peach pits with a very acidic juice could cause a release of cyanide?

Go get some dry ice and put it in some water. It will give off a fog of water vapor which will be very easy to see.

With the high levels of current, that would also heat up the anode a great deal. Perhaps what's happening is that some of the graphite is reacting with the forming oxygen to form little bits of CO2. That is causing the physical structure of the graphite to weaken, thus destroying your anode?