Sciencemadness Discussion Board - What you take pride in...

What you take pride in...

ScienceHideout - 17-6-2011 at 17:38

What apparatus or chemicals do you highly value and treasure? I like my:

a. Sodium
b. Nitric Acid
c. Mercury compounds
d. Addition funnel
e. Radioactive Americium 241
f. My experience
g. My low life expectancy

I know... all are pretty simple and common, but I don't have a huge lab. I just conduct experiments for my enjoyment and to learn. Most of what I do is small- between a few mL to a liter. I hardly ever work with more than a liter of my chemical. When I do, I do the experiment in a trash can. What was I doing yesterday? Making CuCO3 in a trash can!

AndersHoveland - 17-6-2011 at 18:40

a. ammonium perchlorate
b. hydroxylamine sulfate
c. 60% concentrated H2O2
d. jar of elemental bromine
e. 10mL of trinitromethane prepared and dissolved in chloroform
f. my energetic chemical sites

cyanureeves - 17-6-2011 at 18:43

i covet nitrates. it took 2yrs. to understand what a nitrate was and how nitric acid was made. if it were not for bosco36 or bosco 96 showing his method of making nitric acid on youtube,i would not have an idea.regardless of how it was described in literature it was out of my grasp and i wasnt alone because no one around me had a clue either or else i would've learned it. many people dont have a remote interest in learning those things so therefore have no idea as how to make those very same things.i was intent on learning how to silver plate and making my own salts. now i can somewhat gold plate. thank you sciencemadness.org. sincerely cyanureeves . my username is taken from keeanu reeves because i could not correctly pronounce the greek form of cyanus(cyanide)

[Edited on 18-6-2011 by cyanureeves]

#maverick# - 17-6-2011 at 19:36

I take pride in my nitric acid and Graham condensor. But I have the most respect for 18 M h2so4 and Conc. Strong bases

Panache - 17-6-2011 at 20:51

i take great pride in my group of lions and my sense of humor and my ultra low freezers.

oh and some d2o i distilled from ordinary water water using a vigreaux column (thats what someone claimed they did once, very aggressively, they sold it to natropaths (however it spelt), the key was he said to go very slowly))

also i take pride in my ability to keep tabs on my brackets.

nezza - 18-6-2011 at 03:20

Home made elements.

Ampouled bromine
Yellow phosphorus

Reactive metals

Lanthanides and salts

Misc

Pure potassium clorate, Barium nitrate and Strontium nitrate made from Sodium chlorate weedkiller and the nitrates from impure starting materials.

The WiZard is In - 18-6-2011 at 04:00

redox - 18-6-2011 at 04:22

-Conc. nitric acid
-Bromoethane
-Iodoform
-Butyl Nitrite
-Pentyl Acetate
-Glacial acetic acid
-Elemental iodine
-Elemental bromine
-Elemental lithium

-Methanol
-Ethanol
-Propanol
-Isopropanol
-Butanol
-Pentanol

(I like my alcohols!

)

Both distillation sets, 14/20 (Laboy) and 10/14 (Kontes)
My glass pyrex bottles (I paid a lot for those damn bottles!)
My fume hood
My literature collection

[Edited on 18-6-2011 by redox]

ItalianChemist - 18-6-2011 at 06:11

-100ml of elementar bromine
-anthracen-9-carbaldehyde
-oxalyl chloride
-rodamine B
-allhin condenser

Arthur Dent - 18-6-2011 at 06:55

Over the past few months, I acquired a very nice collection of glassware. Taking pride is a relative term, I am very happy that I have this very useful collection, but I reserve my pride for my 25-year experience as a graphic designer, the nice house I've owned for the past 12 years, and my success as a music festival organizer for 4 years.

On the chemistry side, the gear I like the most, and looks the coolest is probably my soxhlet kit with the elusive adapter:

Also my collection of condensers and vigreux, my antique but really nice hotplate, and my numerous distillation adapters. I have several chemicals, but there's no pride in owning chemicals, unless you've synthetized them yourself!

Robert

Mixell - 18-6-2011 at 08:56

Well, I did not do much synthesizing because I didn't find the time to acquire all of the chemicals I wanted.
But I do like my:
Na3MnO4 (got a really nice blue color, the color is even more potent then KMnO4 when in solution).
Germanium sulfate solution, practically useless, but a nice thing to keep in a vial.
My home built magnetic stirrer, works like a charm.
ah, and my a bit yellowish fuming nitric acid.

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by Mixell]

UnintentionalChaos - 18-6-2011 at 09:26

Quote: Originally posted by Arthur Dent

On the chemistry side, the gear I like the most, and looks the coolest is probably my soxhlet kit with the elusive adapter:

Robert

Psh, only 45/50? Mine is 55/50...and I have 3 of them. Couldn't pass up a really good deal when I saw it...

My Friedrich condenser is also awesome and while I do love my gear, my most prized chemistry possession is a tube containing ~1.5g of 6,6'-dibromoindigo, arguably the world's most expensive pigment of antiquity and in quantity equal to 12,000 of the murex snails from which it was extracted historically. I prepared this by a multistep synthesis beginning with p-toluidene.

mr.crow - 18-6-2011 at 10:59

I love my home made iodine. So sparkly! Picture in another thread.

And i love my 2.5L bottle of ACS sulfuric acid. What got me started in this crazy hobby. My friend bought it on a whim for $15 and lots of people find it so hard to get ahold of.

alibabaregis - 18-6-2011 at 11:13

My rare earths elements collection. 50g of each.

piracetam - 18-6-2011 at 19:55

Et2NH
N2H4
tryptamine hcl
elemental bromine
p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde
p-toluenesulfonic acid
n-methylmorpholine
sodium cyanoborohydride
AlCl3
rotavapor-R
pfeiffer duo 2.5
two pfeiffer balzers TPH-170's, with controller
harvard app. 22 series pump
Upchurch microvalve (6-way capillary injection valve)
two specs (ABI 785A with capillary flowcell, and LKB Biochrom Ultrospec II)
NI USB-6009 w Signal Express/LabVIEW 2011
New Brunswick MultiGen fermenter
Pelton & Crane Validator Plus autoclave
two homogenizers (Heat-Systems W-225 sonicator, and Omni International GLH)
micropipettes
eppendorf 5415C
red sep funnel
1.5 m Ace glass column w/ nylon adapters
nLC-MS/MS and CE-MS/MS experience
and an obsessive fascination with analytical equipment..

(I know, strange things on the list...i'm a bioanalytical chemist.)
this is only a small portion of my amassed collection

Arthur Dent, I also have a soxhlet w/ 24/40 -> 45/50 adapter and friedrich condenser, just like yours.

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by piracetam]

Arthur Dent - 19-6-2011 at 04:25

@ piracetam: Damn impressive collection, and that's your home lab? Wow! I'D love ti to get my hands on a rotovap and an autoclave. (wiping off the slobber on the corner of my mouth)

And I also use a Friedrichs condenser on top of my soxhlet, literature says that an Allihn condenser would be prefered, but mine is 19/38 and I don't have an adapter for that. The Friedrichs condenser on the other hand is 24/40. It's a wonderful kit and I paid peanuts for it but I haven't had an opportunity to use it yet.

Robert

piracetam - 19-6-2011 at 04:36

thanks
yeah, it's a bedroom collection, hehe.

so lit. says that an Allihn is preferable over a friedrich? i find that hard to believe.
what would be the advantage? I mean, the friedrich should have more cooling surface area.

Arthur Dent - 19-6-2011 at 04:44

I agree, but there are many occasions where i've seen an Allihn condenser, even Wiki's page features one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soxhlet_extractor

But my glassware provider told me that when he acquired that lot, it was 8 sets of Soxhlet/Friedrichs/adapters that were used for vegetal extracts. It does make more sense, and you don't need to plug in the condenser since air cooling is, or seems to be plenty enough.

Robert

piracetam - 19-6-2011 at 07:48

*shrugs*
I actually prefer the friedrich condenser, it's effectively a coldfinger.
attach it to an RBF/FBF, and you have an atmospheric pressure macroscale sublimation app.

I inadvertently used it like this when refluxing tryptophan in mineral oil; white crystals formed on sides of the [friedrich] condenser; the condenser was rinsed with acetone, and the sample was analyzed with LC/ESI-MS. the mass peak corresponded with Sigma tryptamine standard.

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by piracetam]

Jor - 19-6-2011 at 08:16

I like all my 3-neck RBFs (I have 6 I think). And my fume hood and PTFE lined lab-vacuum pump.

Chems:
-~10g. gold powder, a few grams of both Pd and Pt (as metals and compounds), 75g ammonium perrhenate and a few grams of RuO2 (gift from woelen

)
-10mL SOCl2
-300-350mL CCl4
-250g red and 15-20g white P
-900mL acetic anhydride

Jor - 19-6-2011 at 08:18

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

Na3MnO4 (got a really nice blue color, the color is even more potent then KMnO4 when in solution).

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by Mixell]

How did you make this? Any references?

Mixell - 19-6-2011 at 08:40

Heating molar amounts of NaOH and MnO2 in a beaker to about 200-250C over a course of an hour or how much it takes for all of the material to react.
The formula is 4MnO2 + 12NaOH + O2 --> 3 Na3MnO4 +6H2O.

ItalianChemist - 19-6-2011 at 09:19

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

Heating molar amounts of NaOH and MnO2 in a beaker to about 200-250C over a course of an hour or how much it takes for all of the material to react.
The formula is 4MnO2 + 12NaOH + O2 --> 3 Na3MnO4 +6H2O.

in a beker???

NaOH eats through glass, and I think that it should be fused to form Na3MnO4...at about 350°C

Mixell - 19-6-2011 at 09:37

Well, they should be mixed well, it doesn't eat through glass if it does not melt, just mix it well and stir it every few minutes. It barely did something to the beaker when I prepared it.

ItalianChemist - 19-6-2011 at 09:44

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

Well, they should be mixed well, it doesn't eat through glass if it does not melt, just mix it well and stir it every few minutes. It barely did something to the beaker when I prepared it.

If it doesn't melt ok!
Could you post the entire procedure please?

My Mono-pole magnets

The WiZard is In - 19-6-2011 at 10:05

A technological marvel, however, a financial failure. Because
they were either both ended North or South, people were
only willing to pay half despite their high cost of fabrication.

In despair I destroyed all my samples - burned my lab notes -
and swore a sacred oath never to reveal their method of production.

djh
----
Eventually we eliminated all flaws,
using the method of proof by
exhaustion - anyone, including us,
who tired to analyze the model
would get exhausted before they
understood it well enough to find
the flaws.

Frank Wilczek
Nature 428, 261 (2004)
On Savas Dimopoulos and his work on supersymmetry

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by The WiZard is In]

Mixell - 19-6-2011 at 10:21

Mix (very well) molar amounts ( 3:1 ratio) of NaOH (prills or powder) with a finely divided manganese dioxide powder, I used 10-15 grams of NaOH. Put it all in a beaker and mix well. Put it on a hotplate and heat the hotplate to about 300 degrees, so if you put a prill of NaOH directly on the hotplate- it will melt (but do not heat above that). Steer and divide possibly accumulating masses of matter every few minutes. Check every 10 min a small sample of the mix, when all of it will be blue (allow for a tiny bit of unreacted MO2 to remain, if they refuse to react, you can't win them all) switch off the hotplate and allow it to cool while stirring every 2-3 minutes, thats basically it. Be prepared for the fact that the bottom of the beaker will be slightly damaged. If all goes well- post some pictures, May be I will do the same in a few days.

redox - 19-6-2011 at 11:14

What is the name of Na3MnO4? Sodium Hypomanganate? Trisodium manganate? Sodium hypopermanganite? Sodium manganate (VI)?

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by redox]

Mixell - 19-6-2011 at 11:37

Sodium Hypomanganate, and the oxidation state of manganese is +5, not +6.

redox - 19-6-2011 at 11:46

Thanks Mixell, I meant to type +V,

permanganate: VII
manganate: VI
hypomanganate: V

Jor - 19-6-2011 at 13:45

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

Mix (very well) molar amounts ( 3:1 ratio) of NaOH (prills or powder) with a finely divided manganese dioxide powder, I used 10-15 grams of NaOH. Put it all in a beaker and mix well. Put it on a hotplate and heat the hotplate to about 300 degrees, so if you put a prill of NaOH directly on the hotplate- it will melt (but do not heat above that). Steer and divide possibly accumulating masses of matter every few minutes. Check every 10 min a small sample of the mix, when all of it will be blue (allow for a tiny bit of unreacted MO2 to remain, if they refuse to react, you can't win them all) switch off the hotplate and allow it to cool while stirring every 2-3 minutes, thats basically it. Be prepared for the fact that the bottom of the beaker will be slightly damaged. If all goes well- post some pictures, May be I will do the same in a few days.

First of all, I would do this in a steel crucible.

Second, you did not isolate the sodium hypomanganate in pure form. It likely still contains some NaOH impurities and probably some unreacted MnO2. But do you think it is 80-90+% pure?

[Edited on 19-6-2011 by Jor]

Mixell - 19-6-2011 at 14:37

There was a very small excess of MnO2, to prevent an excess of NaOH. But I'm pretty sure, judging by the looks, that it is 90-95% pure. You can notice small pieces of MnO2, but they are less then 5-7% of the whole powder. And about the steel crucible, that is probably the right choice, I just used what I had.

Lambda-Eyde - 19-6-2011 at 21:00

My standard tapered glassware:

Not shown are the two distillation setups (one 24/40 and one 24/29-19/26) and some flasks. In the bottom right corner is the centerpiece: a 25 cm quartz test tube with a 24/29 male joint.

Of the chemicals, I particularly value:

1 L carbon disulfide
500 ml carbon tetrachloride
500 ml benzyl alcohol
500 ml cyclohexanol
500 ml t-butyl alcohol (those alcohols open for some interesting chemistry!)
50 g mercury(II) chloride
~100 g white phosphorus
25 ml bromine (self made)
1 L methanol (because I needed a police permit, same with the phosphorus and 1 L dichloromethane)

ItalianChemist - 20-6-2011 at 05:38

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

Thank you! Let me find MnO2 and i'll try it!

Mixell - 20-6-2011 at 06:43

You can get it from decomposition of KMnO4 at ~250C, and don't forget to do it in a steel crucible is you have one.

[Edited on 20-6-2011 by Mixell]

ItalianChemist - 21-6-2011 at 01:33

Quote: Originally posted by Mixell

You can get it from decomposition of KMnO4 at ~250C, and don't forget to do it in a steel crucible is you have one.

[Edited on 20-6-2011 by Mixell]

Heating KMnO4 gave me only K2MnO4...so I dissolved KMnO4 in water and I added 35% H2O2 until violet color has disappeared...and MnO2 precipitated out

[Edited on 21-6-2011 by ItalianChemist]

IPN - 24-6-2011 at 06:05

I see others like their soxhlets too.

I take extra pride in mine.

2l flask for comparison.

When I win the lottery....

The WiZard is In - 24-6-2011 at 07:46

I'll buy a couple of these -

and an insurance policy.

Mildronate - 24-6-2011 at 10:39

From reagents Thallium acetate and 100 years old Merch Aluminium chloride (dry, attachment X-ray spectrum).

[Edited on 24-6-2011 by Mildronate]

Attachment: AlCl3.pdf (37kB)
This file has been downloaded 639 times

hkparker - 24-6-2011 at 12:10

Quote: Originally posted by IPN

I see others like their soxhlets too.

I take extra pride in mine.

2l flask for comparison.

thats next to a 2L flask?! now <i>thats</i> what I call a soxhlet extractor! Wish I could afford one right now, but I don't have enough of a use. My ST glass collection is still pretty small.

Jor - 24-6-2011 at 14:06

Some pictures of my glassware, precious materials and some nice useful chems

My glassware with joint, excluding my RBFs (I have 6 3-necks of all different sizes up ranging from 25 to 250mL), my 5 1-necks, 250mL NS29 erlenmeyer, seporatory funnel one more condensor and adapters/stoppers.

Precious metal (compounds). From left to right:
NH4ReO4, RuO2, Pd (3g), Pt (600mg), Au (about 12-13g), mixed Pd and Pt powder of unknown composition (about 4g), Pd foil (from reduction wich formed mirror, about 0,5-0,6g), about 3,5g (NH4)2PtCl6 (much more yellow in reality) and homemade luminol.
In the front are silver, GeO2 and an ampoule containing a gram of chloroplatinic acid.
I forgot to picture my 100mL of pure 2% HAuCl4-solution (contains about 1g of gold) and 100mL of 1,2% H2PtCl6-solution.

Some more interesting chems.
Left to right: NaN3 in small bottle, CCl4, KCN (50 grams in little bottle), Ac2O, white P, P4O10, 10mL of trifluoroacetic anhydride, 5g 5% Pt on kaowool and acetonitrile in the large Merck bottle.

ItalianChemist - 25-6-2011 at 02:22

WOW!
I like very much Ru compounds, but they are very expensive!

Arthur Dent - 25-6-2011 at 04:27

@ Jor: Nice collection of gears and chems. I have a very nice selection of glassware, but nowhere near the collection of chems you have. Always useful to have a vast array of compounds and reagents. The selection of OTC chems is very limited and the reagent grade chems from lab suppliers are insanely expensive.

Robert

cyanureeves - 25-6-2011 at 05:11

Jor nice collection of things. may i ask a couple of questions about KCN ? have you ever made potassium gold cyanide? how much gold would that bottle dissolve? have you ever witnessed gold being dissolved by cyanide? i read that it will dissolve gold without even adding water. i've always wondered why the folks back when electroplating was first done went straight to the cyanide complexes and not for nitrate salts or chloric solutions that were known. lastly have you ever smelled the KCN and how would you describe the smell? i thought about u2u you with these questions but i think they are safe questions to ask. thank you for pictures.

Jor - 25-6-2011 at 05:43

@Italian :Yea I also love Ru-compounds. This was a really kind gift from woelen

@Arthur: Yes I know. I payed a lot of money for my reagents, that's the downside. The good side is that I can buy almost anything I want except for a few CWC chemicals like SOCl2. But even that is not a problem anymore, because soon I will buy about 250mL of the stuff via a Dutch home chemist!

@cyanureeves: No I have not yet made KAu(CN)2 but I will some day. You just suspend the gold into dilute KCN-solution and bubble through air or pure oxygen, wich acts as the oxidiser. I have not yet smelled cyanide, so I do not know if I can smell it. I always work uner a fume hood with it, as it is risky stuff (a fatal amount of gas will knock you out without warning, more dangerous than gasses like chlorine, wich at least give you time to go to the hospital). I am not sure how to safely smell it. I don't know if I can smell it meaning that I would keep trying to smell it if I don't smell it in a smell test (what a sentence

).
It is supposed to smell like nitrobenzene/benzaldehyde? Anyone experience? I know there are people who can't smell it, one example IIRC is woelen, right?
Funny we are talking about CN-compounds, yesterdag I made the compound Mn(en)[Ni(CN)4] from MnCl2-solution, K2[Ni(CN)4] solution (made from 2,80g KCN, so quite alot

) and ethylenediamine. It not that exciting however, a light brown powder.

[Edited on 25-6-2011 by Jor]

woelen - 25-6-2011 at 05:59

I am most proud of my element collection. It already contains quite a few elements in high quality samples:

http://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/compounds/index2....

I also have quite a few special compounds. The ones most precious to me are:
- 80 grams of RuO2
- 150 grams of NH4ReO4
- 8 grams of H2PtCl6
- 1 gram of OsO4
- 4 grams of HAuCl4

Besides these very expensive metal compounds I have quite a few uncommon chemicals which I also value very much:
- K3Co(CN)6
- K2TeO3
- Na2SeO3
- Na2SeO4
- SeO2
- KCN
- NaCN
- PCl5
- SOCl2
- CH3COCl
- (COCl)2
- GeO2
- LiAlH4
- NaBH4
- NbCl5
- As4O10
- CF3COOH

All of the above I have in tens of grams quantities or more.

These are the real special ones and very hard to obtain. You really must run against them by luck. I obtained all of them from personal contacts, none of them through the standard chemical sellers, who do not sell that kind of stuff to private persons. Furthermore I have most of the more common stuff like sulfates, nitrates and/or chlorides of the first row transition metal salts, the common oxidizers, chromates and dichromates, chlorates, perchlorates, bromates, iodates.

I also have a decent set of glassware and a lot of special equipment, good for many chemistry and physics experiments.

[Edited on 25-6-11 by woelen]

cyanureeves - 25-6-2011 at 06:08

cool Jor. dont be in a hurry to smell the stuff. i was just asking because i didnt know if the odor jumps at you or if you had to bury your nose in a jar or something.CN compounds are so very interesting to me and have been very difficult for me to make as it turns to ammonia and hydroxide or carbonate almost instantly.all the stuff i have used to make good prussian blue but now it just turns orange with iron sulfate. on another note i have just made 1litre of almost pure ethanol from 6lbs. of sugar yeast and corn meal. i used a thompson water seal can and aluminum tubing as a stil. in all my 50yrs. i had never made alcohol. i'm proud of my alcohol i guess. whooosh! white(undrinkable) lightning.

ItalianChemist - 26-6-2011 at 08:59

Here are my favourite reagents
From left to right:
Bromine, benzoyl chloride, benzyltriphenylphosphonium chloride, anthracene-9-carbaldehyde, oxalyl chloride and rhodamine B
Next week I'll get some Rubrene and sodium

barley81 - 30-6-2011 at 17:48

I value my nitric acid, teflon capped vials, alkalis, and metals, 1 oz of each (pure):
Silver

Copper
Cupronickel
Tin
Zinc
A kind gift from my tennis teacher, whose nephew has a metal company.

sternman318 - 30-6-2011 at 20:33

@Woelen

I see pictures of your precious collection all over Wikipedia

" Black top... short glass vial.... textured background... yup, it's Woelen's sample"

[Edited on 1-7-2011 by sternman318]

Jor - 30-6-2011 at 21:56

Has that something to with this?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category

hotographs_by_Wilco_Oelen

Or are wikipedia and wikimedia unrelated?

woelen - 1-7-2011 at 02:35

I licensed the pictures from my website under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 license, meaning that they can be used freely in other sites, but that some sort of reference to my original must be added and if a modified version of a picture is distributed, then that must be released under the same or similar license.

Many of the pictures of my website are uploaded to wikimedia commons (which is a repository of media files, which can be used in wikipedia articles) with my permission and after that I added the above-mentioned license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The pictures can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photograp...

@Jor: Your URL is malformed. Use HTML & codes for escaping the : combined with P.

[Edited on 1-7-11 by woelen]

solitanze - 24-4-2016 at 10:21

I have a few things.

My bismuth crystals and mercury (reagent grade).

Nitric acid because it's so useful and represents everything an acid should be IMHO.

Dichromate salts because they're reactive and the sheer range of colors chromium salts can assume.

Barium salts because I like barium.

Phenol because it's somewhat rare. Mine is in a nice glass bottle and it formed (sublimation) long needle-like crystals near the cap. Beautiful yet deadly. It was a gift, I haven't done anything interesting with it to be honest.

My very old mercury thermometers and areometers which I obtained from a brocanterie.