jdurg

Displacement generally won't work because if it's in an aqueous solution, you'll get a massive explosion. At the molten level, not only would there be a lot of heat required, but the added heat would accelerate the reaction with the atmosphere and lead to a big KABOOM with molten salt and caustic metal compounds. Probably the best way is to liquify the cesium and spread it out on a large metal plate. This must be done in a dry atmosphere to avoid major problems, but the cesium will rapidly oxidize in the air and form an incredibly caustic compound. It may catch fire, but it won't explode if it's spread out over a large area.

Well, the machines are portable if you have fifty inch biceps and leg muscles. heh.

MS is generally used in conjunction with GC in nearly all occurances. (Hence GC/MS). The MS is used to give a confirmation of what is discovered in the GC.

Gas Chromatography is used to determine the alcohol level in the blood. Breathalyzers are just a small little portable test that the cops use, but if an actual blood sample is obtained, they would use a GC in conjunction with an MS for the test. It's just that a GC machine isn't exactly what you'd call "portable". heh.

Hey there YT. Here's a picture of two of my sodium samples from that 'cheap' oil I have stored in. The picture comes from my article on sodium and potassium over at http://www.chemicalforums.com. The top piece is just how it looks when taken right out of the oil, and you can see the slight yellow tinge in areas and the overall shine of the metal. The bottom piece is one that I wiped all the oil off of, and you can see the dark red-brown color it has turned. I would love to take this to some place that could analyze it for me so I could figure out what the heck it is.

Perhaps you could use a tip containing concentrated hydrogen peroxide, so when it goes inside the victim the tip breaks releasing the concentrated H2O2. On contact with blood it will immediately burst into a cloud of oxygen and steam.

Quite literally too!

Well, the sites I'm finding online have made me think. (Being at work it's tough to dig deep into the research). I've heard many times that old potassium should be cut in an inert atmosphere as well as under oil. I think the "under oil" part really depends on how old it is. Another thing I read which makes the "under oil" thing dangerous is that the organic oil, when in contact with the peroxide, can form organic peroxides which are really bad. I think I'm just going to have to stay "in the middle" on this. I think it's just safe to say that cutting up old chunks of potassium is not good period.

'Thermit' is, I believe, a trademarked name for a product which produces a thermite reaction. 'Thermite' is the scientific name for it. I just read about this last night. When I get home from work I'll try and find that link again. EDIT: Here we go. Thermit is a trademarked name, while Thermite is the name of the reaction.

But under the oil, as the peroxide/superoxide decomposes it releases heat and oxygen. The oxygen will then react with the freshly cut metal surface releasing even more heat. You will have the oxygen intermittently mixed in with the oil and a good deal of heat being generated. Give me some time to find some references online and I'll post them here.

Well, with old potassium the safest thing to do is just not cut it. I've read online that the proper method of disposal for peroxide/superoxide coated potassium is to dissolve it in 2-propanol (I believe that's isopropanol). My only question with that is won't the potassium immediately explode and ignite the alcohol? With the under oil thing, the reason for not doing so with heavily oxidized potassium is that if it does ignite, ALL of the oil will ignite creating a bigger fire hazard than if you just have a surface coating on the potassium. (Either way, it's still dangerous. It's like the difference between only having the ignition charge of a nuclear bomb go off in your face, or having the entire nuclear bomb go off in your face. Either way, you're screwed. )

Actually, with old potassium cutting it under oil can be even more dangerous. This is because the peroxide/superoxide can generate enough heat to ignite the oil. The best bet with old potassium is to let it dry and cut it under an argon atmosphere. There's still a chance that it can ignite, but the 'incident' will be very subdued by the argon. I have the SAME situation happening with some of my sodium! I bought far too much of it, so some of it had to be stored in a separate container. I bought some cheap mineral oil off of e-bay, and a short while later the oil had congealed into a yellow mass on the bottom of the jar and on the surface of the sodium. The sodium has turned a beautiful, shiny metallic color with no oxidation on the metal itself. If I take a piece out and rub the oil off of it, the metal immediately turns a blood-red color. The oil also has an amine-like fish-odor coming off of it. So I do think that the oxide on the sodium has saponified the oil. I'm just happy to see that it has happened with someone else as well. (The sodium in my other jar with higher grade oil has the standard gray oxide coating on it. That's the sodium I photographed for my element collection photo).

Hello. Just a small warning from your friendly neighborhood element collector. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I decided to get rid of some old potassium that I had. I have one big chunk in a tightly sealed container filled with mineral oil, and I also had a smaller chunk in a not-so-tightly-sealed container. I decided to have some fun with my smaller chunk of potassium by throwing it in a snow pile in my backyard. (Some old leftover snow from about a week ago). I was outside cutting the chunk into two smaller pieces to avoid a big explosion, and as I was cutting the chunk I noticed that the piece had an "off-color" to it. As I was cutting, I realized that the off color was due to some peroxide/superoxide on the surface. As I was cutting the piece, it must have catalyzed the decomposition of said peroxide/superoxide. The small chunk immediately became VERY warm and began to ignite! I hurredly finished the cut and threw the chunk into the snow. The purple "KABOOM" was quite neat, but the fact that it ignited kind of frightend me. The peroxide/superoxide decomposed quite quickly and ignited the trace of mineral oil which was on the surface. Thankfully it was a small piece that was going to be "used" anyway, but it was pretty scary. If I didn't throw it as soon as it started to burn, I would have had a nasty accident. So if you have some old potassium, PLEASE be very careful with it. The bigger piece I have in oil will not be used like my spare piece was, but I'm fairly certain that if I tried to cut it the piece would ignite as well. (It's a sizeable chunk which has a very slight yellowish tinge to it due to the peroxides/superoxides on the surface. The oil itself, thankfully, is free of oxygen since the container is VERY tightly sealed. (I know this because the freshly cut side is still very metallic and shiny even though the piece was cut about two months ago. There's a slight purple tinge growing along the edge, but that is likely due to the peroxides/superoxides slowly decomposing into oxygen which the fresh surface is picking up and safely turning into a simple oxide). So no problems were encountered, but it was a bit frightening to feel and see the piece begin to burn just from cutting it.

Magnesium ribbon is actually the method reccomended for igniting a thermite reaction in just about every single place I've looked. The burning magnesium gets VERY hot so heat is definitely not a problem, and the UV radiation given off will also help overcome the activation energy barrier. The reason why if it doesn't work the first time it won't work the second time, etc. etc. is most likely because of the thermite mixture itself, not the magnesium ribbon. I've discovered that with a thermite, the ingredients need to be VERY intimately mixed. If they are not, there's a chance that your ignition source will hit an area that isn't mixed properly and therefore the whole thing won't ignite. I've found that the best way to mix the ingredients is to put them into a volatile liquid and mix them up thoroughly in the liquid. The ingredients won't dissolve in the liquid, but the will mix together very, very well. You can also form shapes as the mixture begins to dry out and turns into a sort of paste. You then just let it sit overnight and allow all the acetone or whatnot to evaporate into a dry mixture. Then you have a nice, easy to ignite thermite.

LOL. Well, don't worry. If the smoke bomb goes off there'll be too much smoke for your parents to see you anyway. tee-hee.

I must STRONGLY disagree with you here on this one. Nitrogen trichloride is far more stable than nitrogen triiodide is. MUCH more stable. As you move down the column of halogens, the stability of the nitrogen trihalide dramatically drops off. Nitrogen trifluoride is perfectly stable and fairly safe to work with. Nitrogen trichloride will exist as an oily yellow liquid, but is quite unstable and likely to blow up if agitated. (Though it can be transported from one container to another, I'll let you do that). Nitrogen tribromide is VERY unstable and I don't even think it will exist long enough to be observed before blowing up. Nitrogen triiodide is the most unstable of them all, and if it weren't for the fact that it forms an adduct with ammonia when wet, I don't think it would ever form at all. Looking at the steric hinderance of the nitrogen trihalide molecules, it makes perfect sense as to why they become more and more unstable as you move down the column. The halogen atoms simply become too big to hang around near that one solitary nitrogen atom. That's why they go boom. Electronegativity wise, I also think they become more unstable as you move down the group. So in terms of stability, nitrogen trichloride is far more stable than nitrogen triiodide is. Though "stable" is all relative since even nitrogen trichloride can be considered "very" unstable. So this comparison is like comparing being shot in the head by a magnum or being shot in the head by a rifle. While one may be more powerful than the other, either way you're dead.

Is anal-retentive spelled with a hyphen?

Americium is an intense gamma ray emitter. It is used as a portable Gamma Ray source. I cannot think of any radioactive element that does not give off gamma rays. When the atom decays, the nucleus tends to wind up in an excited state. This excited nucleus has to get rid of its energy somehow, so it gives off a gamma ray.

True, but all radioactive metals emit gamma rays.

Technetium, as we all know, is one of two elements with an atomic number less than 83 which is radioactive. (Promethium being the other). When looking around on the web, a lot of sites state that Technetium is highly radioactive and very dangerous. This is something that I kind of have to disagree with. I think that if someone were to obtain a sample of Tc-98, or perhaps it's Tc-99, it wouldn't really be all too dangerous. Here's my reasoning. Tc-98(99) is a beta emitter. It releases an electron when it undergoes decay as a neutron decomposes into a proton and an electron. The Technetium then becomes Ruthenium and the decay chain stops right there as the isotope of Ru it becomes is stable. Also, the particular isotope of Tc that I'm thinking of has a long half-life which means that it's radioactivity isn't fantastically high. Since the decay chain stops at the initial daughter product, all of the radioactivity would be coming from the Technetium itself. If you had a thick walled glass case, the glass and air should stop the beta emissions before it could escape the container. Therefore, why it Tc considered so bad? I'm thinking that it's just an attempt to stop people from trying to get ahold of it. The chemical toxicity may be fairly bad, but it's in the same column as manganese and rhenium, so I don't think it would be toxic like plutonium or uranium are. What are your thoughts on this?

Tee-Hee. Sorry, but these two are staying with me. Sometimes you can get lucky if you're in the right place at the right time. I didn't go out of my way to take advantage of the situation, the situation just kind of came to me. I wasn't going to say no to it. I can only imagine the finds that bank tellers see when people come in to exchange old coins. As far as the bank is concerned, as long as they get face value they don't care what the tellers do. I've heard stories of bank tellers exchanging hundreds upon hundreds of silver dollars and whatnot from uninformed customers, and the tellers just give the bank the face value of the coins and take the coins.

They're not that huge, and they're only 90% gold. These are 2.5 dollar gold eagles from the late 1800's and early 1900's. I think they are around 1/4 ounce of gold each.

Oh dear god I am so happy right now!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to run to the bank a little while ago to deposit a check I was given, and while waiting in line there was this nice little old lady there. She started talking to me and said that she was there to exchange some old coins her late husband had. She didn't think they were worth too much and wanted to get some paper money to give to her neighbor's child for her birthday. She showed me the coins and they were two old american 2.5 dollar gold coins. I had some cash in my hand and she asked me if I'd be willing to exchange them so she didn't have to wait in line. I of course said yes and she just said thank you and got on her way. By the weight of the coins and their condition, they're real! So I just spent five bucks and got some incredibly beautiful gold coins! Wow I was lucky. These buggers are going into a safe and not my element collection. But I have been downright lucky with my gold lately. I have a few really nice gold coins now, and a nice big vial nearly full of gold nuggets, some gold bullion coins, and some pure gold bars. I love how heavy this stuff is!

That price for the uranium is borderline illegal. (It's like they're charging a few thousand dollars for a slug of copper). Depleted Uranium is actually VERY inexpensive, so they are charging far, far, far, far, far more than it's actual value. Anyone who would pay that exorbinant price would have to be a total freaking retard.