Help in identifying an unknown substance please!!

[Suxamethonium]

Ok, so inorganic- (edited out now completely irrelevent old post).

 

Not exactly my area, but did it contain any carbon or hydrogen at all? example, HCO₃^- or CO_3^2- ? Or the HNMR would show if it was wet or dry (H₂O). Um. I guess precipitation reactions or AAS may be most beificial to you, the former you can do at home using a variety of household substances. Let me know if this interested you- i'll think of some important ones.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Suxamethonium

[navg]

lol thanks a lot, I could send you a sample if you'd like to do that idea . It's for not something toxic, it's something really general and it's just not coming to mind, especially because I think it's been worked like recrystallized and then probably compressed together using water or something else.

 

I wouldn't mind trying to do some tests at home with it, all I've done to it really is burn it with water and burn it without water (tried tasting it ) and smelling of course, noting down the texture. And as for my friend tells me, he's the one that told me what it's been dissolved in DMSO, etc and he says that there is a lot of water in it so it is probably a highly hydrated salt. He suggested to do atomic absorption or atomic emission spectroscopy to determine the presence of the various metal ions - sodium, aluminum, silicon, magnesium, calcium, etc. And then see from there.

 

Would love to hear back from you guys, but get your sleep first! Good night!

 

Ok, so inorganic- (edited out now completely irrelevent old post).

 

Not exactly my area, but did it contain any carbon or hydrogen at all? example, HCO₃^- or CO_3^2- ? Or the HNMR would show if it was wet or dry (H₂O). Um. I guess precipitation reactions or AAS may be most beificial to you, the former you can do at home using a variety of household substances. Let me know if this interested you- i'll think of some important ones.

[Suxamethonium]

Yeah- AAS is atomic absorption spec. It'll do most metals, and some will do some non-metals like chloride.

 

Otherwise- go to a high school and ask if they mind if you perform some displacement reactions to work out the compound. Its pretty standard school work over here in australia, but im unsure elsewhere. Anyway- They should be able to describe specifics if you need a hand but the idea of it is:

 

1) You dissolve some of your sample to make a solution.

2) You add this to a series of solutions containing a known salt.

3) You observe for precipitation, indicating an insoluble compound.

4) Use solubility 'rules' to interpret the ions present, and hence your compound.

 

example. Mixing NaCl and Pb(NO₃)₂ would precipitate white PbCl₂. The white precipitate indicates the chloride is present (Iodide would be yellow. Bromide goes brown in light. Sulfate may also cause a white precipitate?).

 

These solubility can be found online- here is an example:

 

http://chemistry.about.com/od/solutionsmixtures/a/solubility-rules.htm

 

You may find better ones if you look more thoroughly than I just did. If you cannot find a school or other institution to give you access, (bi +)carbonates, (bi +)sulfates, phosphates, nitrates and even hydroxides are readily available to a household- but it is much easier if you can find a school.

[hypervalent_iodine]

That isn't going to be much help without knowing what the ligands are. And if the PIXE results are anything to go by, the metals involved are already known and appear to be iron and calcium. I am not an inorganic chemist myself (JohnCuthber or mississippichem might be more help in this than I am going to be), but you might want to see if you can get some IR and, if possible, an X-Ray crystal structure. There are also various other electronic spectroscopic methods, which I know of only very vaguely, but may be of some help to you.

[Suxamethonium]

Didn't think of ligands... good idea- maybe you might be interested to find out if it is chiral (im not sure if you have already- it sounds like you did the test, but im not entirely sure about any results)? At least you know its not overly complicated (bipyrimadine, ethylene diamine, tartrate) from the HNMR and CNMR.

 

My other suggestion- is more conjecture- but if you can find an inorganic, WHITE, compound that contains iron (most have a greeny or yellow colour) and calcium- you might be able to work on trying to prove it IS that, rather than it ISN'T everything else? If it's been recrystallised it should be a single compound, and not a mixture of compounds.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Suxamethonium

[ewmon]

It's actually not difficult, we order this from USA into Canada in large quantities, it's manufactured in the USA and it always stops at the border for a check, sometimes it gets delayed because they test it and it gets released.

Well, there you go. Try to bring some across the border, look a little too sleazy (I recommend some bling, dark sunglasses, hip-hop clothing and some scantily-clad chicks women), ... and presto, they test it for you.

 

Seriously though, you might ask some American govt agency (eg, US DEA) to test it or look into it. Tell them what you told us and more ... you use it to make "magic incense", you're worried that it's illegal or otherwise harmful, and would like to know what it is from a consumer safety perspective. You might be surprised ... and you'd be doing the right thing. I wonder if the FDA regulates incense.

Edited January 16, 2012 by ewmon

[navg]

Too scared to do this! The FDA actually doesn't regulate incense, and well it's been tested before and I tried to ask them what it was, they wouldn't tell me, they said that it was non-toxic and not illegal. So they let it pass every time, and in large quantities, lol wish it was that easy!

 

On the plus side, I have some more data. I hope you geniuses can help narrow this down now!

 

In water:

 

Solubility at room temperature - approx 50 mg/mL, or about 5 g/100mL

Solubility at 100C - approx 160 mg/mL, or about 16g/100 mL

 

These were measured by adding excess solid to water, storing one sample at room temp for two days to equilibrate, and heating the other to reflux. 0.5 mL of each sample was transferred to a vial and the water removed under vacuum. Solid residue was weighed. The solubility measured at 100C may be slightly lower than the true value - the sample cools during the transfer process and the product rapidly recrystallized, leading to some loss of sample

 

pH of water solution at room temp ~4-5

 

 

 

Well, there you go. Try to bring some across the border, look a little too sleazy (I recommend some bling, dark sunglasses, hip-hop clothing and some scantily-clad chicks women), ... and presto, they test it for you.

 

Seriously though, you might ask some American govt agency (eg, US DEA) to test it or look into it. Tell them what you told us and more ... you use it to make "magic incense", you're worried that it's illegal or otherwise harmful, and would like to know what it is from a consumer safety perspective. You might be surprised ... and you'd be doing the right thing. I wonder if the FDA regulates incense.

[navg]

any help?

[elementcollector1]

I would go with Suxamethonium, using different compounds seems the way to go. Apart from that, not much help I can give.